



Class. 
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COPYRIGHT PEPOSIT. 



Queer Little People. 



by 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 



Illustrated 



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AUG. 21 1895 



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BOSTON 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 



Copyright, 1867 and 1S95, 
By TICKNOR & FIELDS and HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 

All rights reserved. 



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CONTENTS. 



Pact 
The Hen that hatched Ducks i 

The Nutcrackers of Nutcracker Lodge ..... 14 

The History of Tip-Top 26 

Miss Katy-did and Miss Cricket 39 

Mother Magpie's Mischief 48 

The Squirrels that live in a House 57 

Hum, the Son of Buz • 67 

Our Country Neighbors 80 

Our Dogs .91 

Dogs and Cats 141 

Aunt Esther's Rules *52 

Aunt Esther's Stories 158 

Sir Walter Scott and his Dogs . . . . . . .167 

Country Neighbors again ......... 176 




THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 

A STORY. 

/^vNCE there was a nice young hen that we will call Mrs. 
^-^ Feathertop. She was a hen of most excellent family, 
being a direct descendant of the Bolton Grays, and as pretty 
a young fowl as you should wish to see of a summer's day 
She was, moreover, as fortunately situated in life as it was 



2 THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 

possible for a hen to be. She was bought by young Master 
Fred Little John, with four or five family connections of 
hers, and a lively young cock, who was held to be as brisk 
a scratcher and as capable a head oT a family as any half- 
dozen sensible hens could desire. 

I can't say that at first Mrs. Feathertop was a very sen- 
sible hen. She was very pretty and lively, to be sure, 
and a great favorite with Master Bolton Gray Cock, on 
account of her bright eyes, her finely shaded feathers, and 
certain saucy dashing ways that she had, which seemed 
greatly to take his fancy. But old Mrs. Scratchard, living 
in the neighboring yard, assured all the neighborhood that 
Gray Cock was a fool for thinking so much of that flighty 
young thing, — that she had not the smallest notion how 
to get on in life, and thought of nothing in the world but 
her own pretty feathers. "Wait till she comes to have 
chickens,'* said Mrs. Scratchard. "Then you will see. I 
have brought up ten broods myself, — as likely and respecta- 
ble chickens as ever were a blessing to society, — and I think 
I ought to know a good hatcher and brooder when I see 
her ; and I know that fine piece of trumpery, with her white 
feathers tipped with gray, never will come down to family 
life. She scratch for chickens ! Bless me, she never did 
anything in all her days but run round and eat the worms 
which somebody else scratched up for her. 

When Master Bolton Cray heard this he crowed ver> 



THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 3 

loudly, like a cock of spirit, and declared that old Mrs. 
Scratchard was envious, because she had lost all her own 
tail-feathers, and looked more like a worn-out old feather- 
duster than a respectable hen, and that therefore she was 
filled with sheer envy of anybody that was young and 
pretty. So young Mrs. Feathertop cackled gay defiance at 
her busy rubbishy neighbor, as she sunned herself under the 
bushes on fine June afternoons. 

Now Master Fred Little John had been allowed to have 
these hens by his mamma on the condition that he would build 
their house himself, and take all the care of it ; and, to do 
Master Fred justice, he executed the job in a small way quite 
creditably. He chose a sunny sloping bank covered with a 
thick growth of bushes, and erected there a nice little hen- 
house, with two glass windows, a little door, and a good pole 
for his family to roost on. He made, moreover, a row of nice 
little boxes with hay in them for nests, and he bought three 
or four little smooth white china eggs to put in them, so that, 
when his hens did lay, he might carry off their eggs without 
their being missed. This hen-house stood in a little grove 
that sloped down to a wide river, just where there was a littie 
cove which reached almost to the hen-house. 

This situation inspired one of Master Fred's boy advisers 
with a new scheme in relation to his poultry enterprise 
"Hullo! I say, Fred," said Tom Seymour, "you ought to raise 
ducks, — you Ve got a capital place for ducks there." 



4 THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 

11 Yes, — but I 've bought hens, you see," said Freddy ; 
" so it 's no use trying." 

" No use ! Of course there is ! Just as if your hens could n't 
hatch ducks' eggs. Now you just wait till one of your hens 
wants to set, and you put ducks' eggs under her, and you '11 
have a family of ducks in a twinkling. You can buy ducks' 
eggs, a plenty, of old Sam under the hill ; he always has 
hens hatch his ducks." 

So Freddy thought it would be a good experiment, and 
informed his mother the next morning that he intended to 
furnish the ducks for the next Christmas dinner ; and when 
she wondered how he was to come by them, he said, mys- 
teriously, "O, I will show you how!" but did not further 
explain himself. The next day he went with Tom Seymour, 
and made a trade with old Sam, and gave him a middle- 
aged jack-knife for eight of his ducks' eggs. Sam, by the 
by, was a woolly-headed old negro man, who lived by the 
pond hard by, and who had long cast envying eyes on Fred's 
iack-knife, because it was of extra-fine steel, having been a 
Christmas present the year before. But Fred knew very 
well there were any number more of jack-knives where that 
came from, and that, in order to get a new one, he must 
dispose of the old ; so he made the trade and came home 
rejoicing. 

Now about this time Mrs. Feathertop, having laid her 
nggs daily with great credit to herself, notwithstanding Mrs 



THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 5 

Scratchard's predictions, began to find herself suddenly at- 
tacked with nervous symptoms. She lost her gay spirits, 
grew dumpish and morose, stuck up her feathers in a bris- 
tling way, and pecked at her neighbors if they did so much 
as look at her. Master Gray Cock was greatly concerned, 
and went to old Doctor Peppercorn, who looked solemn, and 
recommended an infusion of angle-worms, and said he would 
look in on the patient twice a day till she was better. 

" Gracious me, Gray Cock ! " said old Goody Kertarkut, 
who had been lolling at the corner as he passed, " a'n't you 
a fool ? — cocks always are fools. Don't you know what 's 
the matter with your wife ? She wants to set, — that 's all ; 
and you just let her set ! A fiddlestick for Doctor Pepper- 
corn ! Why, any good old hen that has brought up a family 
knows more than a doctor about such things. You just go 
home and tell her to set, if she wants to, and behave her- 
self." 

When Gray Cock came home, he found that Master Freddy 
had been before him, and established Mrs. Feathertop upon 
eight nice eggs, where she was sitting in gloomy grandeur. 
He tried to make a little affable conversation with her, and 
to relate his interview with the doctor and Goody Kertar- 
kut, but she was morose and sullen, and only pecked at 
him now and then in a very sharp, unpleasant way ; so 
ifter a few more efforts to make himself agreeable, he left 
ler, and went out promenading with the captivating Mrs 



5 THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 

Red Comb, a charming young Spanish widow, who had just 
been imported into the neighboring yard. 

"Bless my soul!" said he, "you 've no idea how cross my 
wife is." 

" O you horrid creature ! " said Mrs. Red Comb ; " how 
little you feel for the weaknesses of us poor hens ! " 

" On my word, ma'am," said Gray Cock, " you do me in- 
justice. But when a hen gives way to temper, ma'am, and 
no longer meets her husband with a smile, — when she even 
pecks at him whom she is bound to honor and obey — " 

" Horrid monster ! talking of obedience ! I should say, sir, 
you came straight from Turkey ! " and Mrs. Red Comb tossed 
her head with a most bewitching air, and pretended to run 
away, and old Mrs. Scratchard looked out of her coop and 
called to Goody Kertarkut, — 

"Look how Mr. Gray Cock is flirting with that widow. 
I always knew she was a baggage." 

"And his poor wife left at home alone," said Goody Ker- 
tarkut. " It 's the way with 'em all ! " 

" Yes, yes," said Dame Scratchard, " she '11 know what 
real life is now, and she won't go about holding her head 
so high, and looking down on her practical neighbors that 
have raised families." 

"Poor thing what '11 she do with a family?" said Goody 
Kertarkut. 

"Well, what business have such young flirts to get mar- 



THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 7 

ried ? " said Dame Scratchard. " I don't expect she '11 raise 
a single chick ; and there 's Gray Cock flirting about, fine 
as ever. Folks did n't do so when I was young. I 'm sure 
my husband knew what treatment a setting hen ought to 
have, — poor old Long Spur, — he never minded a peck or 
so now and then. I must say these modern fowls a'n't what 
fowls used to be." 

Meanwhile the sun rose and set, and Master Fred was 
almost the only friend and associate of poor little Mrs. Feath- 
ertop, whom he fed daily with meal and water, and only in- 
terrupted her sad reflections by pulling her up occasionally 
to see how the eggs were coming on. 

At last, " Peep, peep, peep ! " began to be heard in the nest, 
and one little downy head after another poked forth from 
under the feathers, surveying the world with round, bright, 
winking eyes ; and gradually the brood were hatched, and 
Mrs. Feathertop arose, a proud and happy mother, with all 
the bustling, scratching, care-taking instincts of family-life 
warm within her breast. She clucked and scratched, and 
cuddled the little downy bits of things as handily and dis- 
:reetly as a seven-year-old hen could have done, exciting 
thereby the wonder of the community. 

Master Gray Cock came home in high spirits, and com- 
plimented her ; told her she was looking charmingly once 
more, and said, " Very well, very nice ! " as he surveyed the 
young brood. Sc that Mrs Feathertop began to feel the 



3 THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 

world going well with her, — when suddenly in came Dame 
Scratchard and Goody Kertarkut to make a morning call. 

" Let 's see the chicks," said Dame Scratchard. 

" Goodness me," said Goody Kertarkut, " what a likeness 
to their dear papa!" 

" Well, but bless me, what 's the matter with their bills ? " 
said Dame Scratchard. " Why, my dear, these chicks are 
deformed ! I 'm sorry for you, my dear, but it 's all the result 
of your inexperience ; you ought to have eaten pebble-stones 
with your meal when you were setting. Don't you see, 
Dame Kertarkut, what bills they have ? That '11 increase, 
and they '11 be frightful ! " 

" What shall I do ? " said Mrs. Feathertop, now greatly 
alarmed. 

"Nothing, as I know of," said Dame Scratchard, "since 
you did n't come to me before you set. I could have told 
you all about it. Maybe it won't kill 'em, but they '11 al- 
ways be deformed." 

And so the gossips departed, leaving a sting under the 
pin-feathers of the poor little hen mamma, who began to 
see that her darlings had curious little spoon-bills, different 
from her own, and to worry and fret about it. 

"My dear," she said to her spouse, "do get Dr. Pepper- 
corn to come in and look at their bills, and see if anything 
tan be done." 

"Dr. Peppercorn came in, anc* put on a monstrous pair 



THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 9 

of spectacles, and said, " Hum ! Ha ! Extraordinary case, — 
very singular ! " 

" Did you ever see anything like it, Doctor ? " said both 
parents, in a breath. 

" I 've read of such cases. It 's a calcareous enlargement 
of the vascular bony tissue, threatening ossification," said 
the Doctor. 

" O, dreadful ! — can it be possible ? " shrieked both parents. 
" Can anything be done ? " 

" Well, I should recommend a daily lotion made of mosqui- 
toes' horns and bicarbonate of frogs' toes, together with a 
powder, to be taken morning and night, of muriate of fleas. 
One thing you must be careful about : they must never wet 
their feet, nor drink any water." 

" Dear me, Doctor, I don't know what I shall do, for they 
seem to have a particular fancy for getting into water." 

"Yes, a morbid tendency often found in these cases of 
bony tumification of the vascular tissue of the mouth ; but 
you must resist it, ma'am, as their life depends upon it " ; — 
and with that Dr. Peppercorn glared gloomily on the young 
ducks, who were stealthily poking the objectionable little 
spoon-bills out from under their mother's feathers. 

After this poor Mrs. Feathertop led a weary life of it ; for 
the young fry were as healthy and enterprising a brood of 
young ducks as ever carried saucepans on the end of the:. 
loses, and they most utterly set themselves against the 



10 THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 

Doctor's prescriptions, murmured at the muriate of fleas 
and the bicarbonate of frogs' toes, and took every oppor- 
tunity to waddle their little ways down to the mud and 
water which was in their near vicinity. So their bills 
grew larger and larger, as did the rest of their bodies, 
and family government grew weaker and weaker. 

"You'll wear me out, children, you certainly will," said 
poor Mrs. Feathertop. 

" You '11 go to destruction, — do ye hear ? " said Master 
Gray Cock. 

"Did you ever see such frights as poor Mrs. Feathertop 
has got ? " said Dame Scratchard. " I knew what would 
come of her family, — all deformed, and with a dreadful 
sort of madness, which makes them love to shovel mud 
with those shocking spoon-bills of theirs." 

"It's a kind of idiocy," said Goody Kertarkut. "Poor 
things ! they can't be kept from the water, nor made to 
take powders, and so they get worse and worse." 

"I understand it's affecting their feet so that they can't 
walk, and a dreadful sort of net is growing between their 
toes ; what a shocking visitation ! " 

" She brought it on herself," said Dame Scratchard. " Why 
didn't she come to me before she set? She was always 
an upstart, self-conceited thing, but I 'm sure I pity her/' 

Meanwhile the young ducks throve apace. Their necks 
grew glossy, like changeable green and gold satin, and 



THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. II 

though they would not take the doctor's medicine, and 
would waddle in the mud and water, — for which they al- 
ways felt themselves to be very naughty ducks, — yet they 
grew quite vigorous and hearty. At last one day the 
whole little tribe waddled off down to the K ank of the 
river. It was a beautiful day, and the river was dancing 
and dimpling and winking as the little breezes shook the 
trees that hung over it. 

" Well," said the biggest of the little ducks, " in spite of 
Dr. Peppercorn, I can't help longing for the water. I don't 
believe it is going to hurt me, — at any rate, here goes " ; 
— and in he plumped, and in went every duck after him, 
and they threw out their great brown feet as cleverly as 
if they had taken rowing lessons all their lives, and sailed 
off on the river, away, away among the ferns, under the 
pink azalias, through reeds and rushes, and arrow-heads 
and pickerel-weed, the happiest ducks that ever were born ; 
and soon they were quite out of sight. 

u Well, Mrs. Feathertop, this is a dispensation ! " said 
Mrs. Scratchard. "Your children are all drowned at last, 
just as I knew they 'd be. The old music-teacher, Master 
Bullfrog, that lives down in Water-Dock Lane, saw 'em all 
plump madly into the water together this morning ; that 's 
what comes of not knowing how to bring up a family." 

Mrs. Feathertop gave only one shriek and fainted dead 
iway, and was carried home on a cabbage-leaf, and Mr 



'2 THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 

Gray Cock was sent for, where he was waiting on Mrs. 
Red Comb through the squash-vines. 

" It 's a serious time in your family, sir," said Goody 
Kertarkut, "and you ought to be at home supporting 
your wife. Send for Doctor Peppercorn without delay." 

Now as the case was a very dreadful one, Doctor Pep- 
percorn called a council from the barn-yard of the Squire, 
two miles off, and a brisk young Doctor Partlett appeared, 
in a fine suit of brown and gold, with tail-fe^.hers like 
meteors. A fine young fellow he was, lately Lorn Paris, 
with all the modern scientific improvements fiash in his 
head. 

When he had listened to the whole story, he flapped his 
spur into the ground, and leaning back, laughed so loud 
that all the cocks in the neighborhood crowed. 

Mrs. Feathertop rose up out of her swoon, and Mr. Gray 
Cock was greatly enraged. 

"What do you mean, sir, by such behavior in the house 
of mourning ? " 

" My dear sir, pardon me, — but there is no occasion for 
mourning. My dear madam, let me congratulate you. 
There is no harm done. The simple matter is, dear 
madam, you have been under a hallucination all along. 
The neighborhood and my learned friend the doctor have 
^11 made a mistake in thinking that these children of 
yours were hens at all. They are ducks, ma'am, evidently 
ducks, and very finely formed ducks I dare say." 



THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 1 3 

At this moment a quack was heard, and at a distance 
the whole tribe were seen coming waddling home, their 
feathers gleaming in green and gold, and they themselves 
in high good spirits. 

" Such a splendid day as we have had ! " they all cried 
in a breath. "And we know now how to get our own 
living ; we can take care of ourselves in future, so you 
need have no further trouble with us." 

"Madam," said the doctor, making a bow with an air 
which displayed his tail-feathers to advantage, "let me con- 
gratulate you on the charming family you have raised. A 
finer brood of young, healthy ducks I never saw. Give 
claw, my dear friend," he said, addressing the elder son. 
"In our barn-yard no family is more respected than that 
of the ducks." 

And so Madam Feathertop came off glorious at last ; 
and when after this the ducks used to go swimming up 
and down the river like so many nabobs among the ad- 
miring hens, Doctor Peppercorn used to look after them 
and say, " Ah ! I had the care of their infancy ! " and Mr. 
Gray Cock and his wife used to say, "It was our system 
of education did that!" 




THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. 



]\ /TR. and Mrs. Nutcracker were as respectable a pair of 
■*•*-*» squirrels as ever wore gray brushes over their backs. 
They were animals of a settled and serious turn of mind, 
not disposed to run after vanities and novelties, but filling 
their station in life with prudence and sobriety. Nut- 
cracker Lodge was a hole in a sturdy old chestnut over 
hanging a shady dell, and was held to be as respectably 
kept an establishment as there was in the whole forest 
Even Miss Jenny Wren, the greatest gossip of the neigh- 
borhood, never found anything to criticise in its arrange- 



THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. 1 5 

ments, and old Parson Too-whit, a venerable owl who inhab- 
ited a branch somewhat more exalted, as became his pro- 
fession, was in the habit of saving himself much trouble in 
his parochial exhortations by telling his parishioners in short 
to " look at the Nutcrackers " if they wanted to see what it 
was to live a virtuous life. Everything had gone on pros- 
perously with them, and they had reared many successive 
families of young Nutcrackers, who went forth to assume 
their places in the forest of life, and to reflect credit on 
their bringing-up, — so that naturally enough they began 
to have a very easy way of considering themselves models 
of wisdom. 

But at last it came along, in the course of events, that 
they had a son named Featherhead, who was destined to 
bring them a great deal of anxiety. Nobody knows what 
the reason is, but the fact was, that Master Featherhead 
was as different from all the former children of this worthy 
couple as if he had been dropped out of the moon into 
their nest, instead of coming into it in the general way. 
Young Featherhead was a squirrel of good parts and a 
lively disposition, but he was sulky and contrary and unrea- 
sonable, and always finding matter of complaint in every- 
thing his respectable papa and mamma did. Instead of 
assisting in the cares of a family, — picking up nuts and 
learning other lessons proper to a young squirrel, — he 
seemed to settle nimself from his earliest years into a sort 



[6 THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. 

of lofty contempt for the Nutcrackers, for Nutcracker 
Lodge, and for all the good old ways and insritutions of 
the domestic hole, which he declared to be stupid and 
unreasonable, and entirely behind the times. To be sure, 
he was always on hand at meal-times, and played a very 
lively tooth on the nuts which his mother had collected, 
always selecting the. very best for himself; but he seasoned 
his nibbling with so much grumbling and discontent, and 
so many severe remarks, as to give the impression that he 
considered himself a peculiarly ill-used squirrel in having 
to "eat their old grub," as he very unceremoniously 
called it. 

Papa Nutcracker, on these occasions, was often fiercely 
indignant, and poor little Mamma Nutcracker would shed 
tears, and beg her darling to be a little more reasonable ; 
but the young gentleman seemed always to consider him- 
self as the injured party. 

Now nobody could tell why or wherefore Master Feath- 
erhead looked upon himself as injured and aggrieved, since 
he was living in a good hole, with plenty to eat, and with- 
out the least care or labor of his own ; but he seemed 
rather to value himself upon being gloomy and dissatis- 
fied. While his parents and brothers and sisters were 
cheerfully racing up and down the branches, busy in their 
domestic toils, and laying up stores for the winter, Feath 
erhead sat gloomily apart, declaring himself weary of exist 



THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. \J 

ence, and feeling himself at liberty to quarrel with every- 
body and everything about him. Nobody understood him, 
he said ; — he was a squirrel of a peculiar nature, and 
needed peculiar treatment, and nobody treated him in a 
way that did not grate on the finer nerves of his feelings. 
He had higher notions of existence than could be bounded 
by that old rotten hole in a hollow tree ; he had thoughts 
that soared far above the miserable, petty details of every- 
day life, and he could not and would not bring down these 
soaring aspirations to the contemptible toil of laying up a 
few chestnuts or hickory-nuts for winter. 

"Depend upon it, my dear," said Mrs. Nutcracker sol- 
emnly, "that fellow must be a genius." 

" Fiddlestick on his genius ! " said old Mr. Nutcracker ; 
"what does he do?" 

" O nothing, of course ; that 's one of the first marks of 
genius. Geniuses, you know, never can come down to 
common life." 

"He eats enough for any two," remarked old Nutcracker, 
"and he never helps gather nuts." 

" My dear, ask Parson Too-whit ; he has conversed with 
him, and quite agrees with me that he says very uncom- 
mon things for a squirrel of his age ; he has such fine 
feelings, — so much above those of the common crowd." 

" Fine feelings be hanged ! " said old Nutcracker. " When 
a. fellow eats all the nuts that his mother gives him, and 

2 



1 8 THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. 

then grumbles at her, I don't believe much in his fine feel- 
ings. Why don't he set himself about something? I'm 
going to tell my fine young gentleman, that, if he doesn't 
behave himself, I '11 tumble him out of the nest, neck and 
Cop, and see if hunger won't do something towards bring- 
ing down his fine airs." 

But then Mrs. Nutcracker fell on her husband's neck 
with both paws, and wept, and besought him so piteously 
to have patience with her darling, that old Nutcracker, 
who was himself a soft-hearted old squirrel, was prevailed 
upon to put up with the airs and graces of his young scape- 
grace a little longer ; and secretly in his silly old heart 
he revolved the question whether possibly it might not 
be that a great genius was actually to come of his house- 
hold. 

The Nutcrackers belonged to the old established race of 
the Grays, but they were sociable, friendly people, and kept 
on the best of terms with all branches of the Nutcracker 
family. The Chipmunks of Chipmunk Hollow were a very 
lively, cheerful, sociable race, and on the very best of terms 
with the Nutcracker Grays. Young Tip Chipmunk, the 
oldest son, was in all respects a perfect contrast to Master 
Featherhead. He was always lively and cheerful, and so 
very alert in providing for the family, that old Mr. and 
Mrs. Chipmunk had very little care, but could sit sociably 
at the door of their hole and chat with neighbors, quite 



THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. 19 

sure that Tip would bring everything out right for them, 
and have plenty laid up for winter. 

Now Featherhead took it upon him, for some reason or 
other, to look down upon Tip Chipmunk, and on every 
occasion to disparage him in the social circle, as a very 
common kind of squirrel, with whom it would be best not 
to associate too freely. 

"My dear," said Mrs. Nutcracker one day, when he was 
expressing these ideas, "it seems to me that you are too 
hard on poor Tip ; he is a most excellent son and brother, 
and I wish you would be civil to him." 

" O, I don't doubt that Tip is good enough," said Feath- 
erhead, carelessly ; " but then he is so very common ! he 
has n't an idea in his skull above his nuts and his hole. 
He is good-natured enough, to be sure, — these very ordi- 
nary people often are good-natured, — but he wants man- 
ner ; he has really no manner at all ; and as to the deeper 
feelings, Tip has n't the remotest idea of them. I mean 
always to be civil to Tip when he comes in my way, but 
I think the less we see of that sort of people the better ; 
and I hope, mother, you won't invite the Chipmunks at 
Christmas, — these family dinners are such a bore ! " 

"But, my dear, your father thinks a great deal of the 
Chipmunks ; and it is an old family custom to have all 
the relatives here at Christmas" 

" And an awful bore it is ! Why must people of refine- 



20 THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. 

ment and elevation be forever tied down because of some 
distant relationship ? Now there are our cousins the High- 
Flyers, — if we could get them, there would be some sense 
in it. Young Whisk rather promised me for Christmas ; 
but it 's seldom now you can get a flying squirrel to show 
himself in our parts, and if we are intimate with the Chip- 
munks it is n't to be expected." 

" Confound him for a puppy ! " said old Nutcracker, when 
his wife repeated these sayings to him. "Featherhead is 
a fool. Common, forsooth ! I wish good, industrious, pains- 
taking sons like Tip Chipmunk were common. For my 
part, I find these uncommon people the most tiresome ; 
they are not content with letting us carry the whole load, 
but they sit on it, and scold at us while we carry them." 

But old Mr. Nutcracker, like many other good old gen- 
tlemen squirrels, found that Christmas dinners and other 
things were apt to go as his wife said, and his wife was 
apt to go as young Featherhead said ; and so, when Christ- 
mas came, the Chipmunks were not invited, for the first 
time in many years. The Chipmunks, however, took all 
pleasantly, and accepted poor old Mrs. Nutcracker's awk- 
ward apologies with the best possible grace, and young 
Tip looked in on Christmas morning with the compliments 
of the season and a few beech-nuts, which he had secured 
as a grea>. dainty. The fact was, that Tip's little striped 
fur coat was so filled up and overflowing with cheerfib 



THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. 21 

Dfood-will to all, that he never could be made to under- 
stand that any of his relations could want to cut him ; 
and therefore Featherhead looked down on him with con- 
tempt, and said he had no tact, and could n't see when 
he was not wanted. 

It was wonderful to see how, by means of persisting in 
remarks like these, young Featherhead at last got all his 
family to look up to him as something uncommon. Though 
he added nothing to the family, and required more to be 
done for him than all the others put together, — though he 
showed not the smallest real perseverance or ability in any- 
thing useful, — yet somehow all his brothers and sisters, 
and his poor foolish old mother, got into a way of regard- 
ing him as something wonderful, and delighting in his 
sharp sayings as if they had been the wisest things in the 
world. 

But at last old papa declared that it was time for Feath- 
erhead to settle himself to some business in life, roundly 
declaring that he could not always have him as a hanger- 
on in the paternal hole. 

" What are you going to do, my boy ? " said Tip Chip- 
munk to him one day. "We are driving now a thriving 
trade in hickory-nuts, and if you would like to join us — " 

" Thank you," said Featherhead ; " but I confess I have 
no fancy for anything so slow as the hickory trade ; I 
lever was made to grub and delve in that way." 



22 THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. 

The; fact was, that Featherhead had lately been form- 
ing alliances such as no reputable squirrel should even 
think of. He had more than once been seen going out 
evenings with the Rats of Rat Hollow, — a race whose 
reputation for honesty was more than doubtful. The fact 
was, further, that old Longtooth Rat, an old sharper and 
money-lender, had long had his eye on Featherhead as just 
about silly enough for their purposes, — engaging him in 
what he called a speculation, but which was neither more 
nor less than downright stealing. 

Near by the chestnut-tree where Nutcracker Lodge was 
situated was a large barn filled with corn and grain, be- 
sides many bushels of hazel-nuts, chestnuts, and walnuts. 
Now old Longtooth proposed to young Featherhead that 
he should nibble a passage into this loft, and there estab- 
lish himself in the commission business, passing the nuts 
and corn to him as he wanted them. Old Longtooth knew 
what he was about in the proposal, for he had heard talk 
of a brisk Scotch terrier that was about to be bought to 
keep the rats from the grain ; but you may be sure he 
kept his knowledge to himself, so that Featherhead was 
none the wiser for it. 

"The nonsense of fellows like Tip Chipmunk!" said Feath- 
erhead to his admiring brothers and sisters. " The perfectly 
stupid nonsense ! There he goes, delving and poking, pick- 
ing up a nut here and a grain there, when I step into prop 
erty at once." 



THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. 23 

* But I hope, my son, you are careful to be honest in 
your dealings," said old Nutcracker, who was a very moral 
squirrel. 

With that, young Featherhead threw his tail saucily over 
one shoulder, winked knowingly at his brothers, and said, 
" Certainly, sir ! If nonesty consists in getting what you can 
while it is going, I mean to be honest." 

Very soon Featherhead appeared to his admiring com- 
panions in the height of prosperity. He had a splendid 
hole in the midst of a heap of chestnuts, and he literally 
seemed to be rolling in wealth ; he never came home with- 
out showering lavish gifts on his mother and sisters ; he 
wore his tail over his back with a buckish air, and patron- 
ized Tip Chipmunk with a gracious nod whenever he met 
him, and thought that the world was going well with him. 

But one luckless day, as Featherhead was lolling in his 
hole, up came two boys with the friskiest, wiriest Scotch ter- 
rier you ever saw. His eyes blazed like torches, and poor 
Featherhead's heart died within him as he heard the boys 
say, " Now we '11 see if we can't catch the rascal that eats 
our grain." 

Featherhead tried to slink out at the hole he had gnawed 
come in by, but found it stopped. 

" O, you are there, are you, Mister ? " said the boy. " Weii, 
you don't get oil* ; and now for a chase ! " 

And, sure enough, poor Featherhead ran distracted with 



24 



THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. 





-- 



sip 

- 

mm U 




terror up and down, through the bundles of hay, between 
Darrels, and over casks ; but with the barking terrier ever 
at his heels, and the boys running, shouting, and cheering 
his pursuer on. He was glad at last to escape through a 
crack, though he left half of his fine brush behind him, — 
for Master Wasp the terrier made a snap at it just as he 
was going, and cleaned all the hair off of it, so that it was 
bare as a rat's tail. 

Poor Featherhead limped off, bruised and beaten and be- 
draggled, with the boys and dog still after him ; and thejf 



THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE. 25 

would have caught him, after all, if Tip Chipmunk's hole 
had not stood hospitably open to receive him. Tip took 
him in, like a good-natured fellow as he was, and took the 
best of care of him ; but the glory of Featherhead's tail had 
departed forever. He had sprained his left paw, and got 
a chronic rheumatism, and the fright and fatigue which he 
had gone through had broken up his constitution, so that 
he never again could be what he had been ; but Tip gave 
him a situation as under-clerk in his establishment, and from 
that time he was a sadder and a wiser squirrel than he ever 
had been before. 



^iHjMfe 



=»ft^. 




THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 



T TNDER the window of a certain pretty little cottage 
*^ there grew a great old apple-tree, which in the spring 
had thousands and thousands of lovely pink blossoms on it, 
and in the autumn had about half as many bright red apples 
as it had blossoms in the spring. 

The nursery of this cottage was a little bower of a room 
papered with mossy-green paper, and curtained with white 
muslin ; and here five little children used to come, in their 
white nightgowns, to be dressed and have their hair brushed 
and curled every morning 



THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 2"J 

First, there were Alice and Mary, bright-eyed, laughing lit- 
tle girls, of seven and eight years, and then came stout little 
Jamie, and Charlie, and finally little Puss, whose real name 
was Ellen, but who was called Puss, and Pussy, and Birdie, 
and Toddlie, and any other pet name that came to mind. 

Now it used to happen, every morning, that the five little 
heads would be peeping out of the window, together, into 
the flowery boughs of the apple-tree ; and the reason was 
this. A pair of robins had built a very pretty, smooth-lined 
nest in a fork of the limb that came directly under the win- 
dow, and the building of this nest had been superintended, 
day by day, by the five pairs of bright eyes of these five 
children. The robins at first had been rather shy of this 
inspection ; but, as they got better acquainted, they seemed 
to think no more of the little curly heads in the window, 
than of the pink blossoms about them, or the daisies and 
buttercups at the foot of the tree. 

All the little hands were forward to help ; some threw 
out flossy bits of cotton, — for which, we grieve to say, 
Charlie had cut a hole in the crib quilt, — and some threw 
out bits of thread and yarn, and Allie ravelled out a con- 
siderable piece from one of ner garters, which she threw out 
as a contribution ; and they exulted in seeing the skill with 
which the little builders wove everything in. " Little birds, 
'ittle birds," they would say, "you shall be kept warm, for 
wz have given you cotton out of our crib quilt, and yarn 



28 THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 

out of cur stockings." Nay, so far did this generosity pro- 
ceed, that Charlie cut a flossy, golden curl from Toddlie's 
head and threw it out ; and when the birds caught it up 
the whole flock laughed to see Toddlie's golden hair figur- 
ing in a bird's-nest. 

When the little thing was finished, it was so neat, and 
trim, and workman-like, that the children all exulted over 
it, and called it " our nest," and the two robins they called 
"our birds." But wonderful was the joy when the little 
eyes, opening one morning, saw in the nest a beautiful pale- 
green egg ; and the joy grew from day to day, for every 
day there came another egg, and so on till there were five 
little eggs ; and then the oldest girl, Alice, said, " There 
are five eggs ; that makes one for each of us, and each of 
us will have a little bird by and by " ; — at which all the 
children laughed and jumped for glee. 

When the five little eggs were all laid, the mother-bird 
began to sit on them ; and at any time of day or night, 
when a little head peeped out of the nursery window, might 
be seen a round, bright, patient pair of bird's eyes content- 
edly waiting for the young birds to come. It seemed a long 
time for the children to wait ; but every day they put some 
bread and cake from their luncheon on the window-sill, sc 
that the birds might have something to eat ; but still there 
she was, patiently watching ! 

" How long, long, long she waits ! " said Jamie, impatiently 
I don't believe she 's ever going to hatch." 



THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 2$ 

" O, yes she is ! " said grave little Alice. " Jamie, you 
don't understand about these things ; it takes a long, long 
time to hatch eggs. Old Sam says his hens set three weeks ; 
— only think, almost a month ! " 

Three weeks looked a long time to the five bright pairs 
of little watching eyes ; but Jamie said, the eggs were so 
much smaller than hens' eggs, that it would n't take so long 
to hatch them, he knew. Jamie always thought he knew 
all about everything, and was so sure of it that he rather 
took the lead among the children. But one morning, when 
they pushed their five heads out of the window, the round, 
patient little bird-eyes were gone, and there seemed to be 
nothing in the nest but a bunch of something hairy. 

Upon this they all cried out, " O mamma, do come here ! 
the bird is gone and left her nest ! " And when they cried 
out, they saw five wide little red mouths open in the nest, 
and saw that the hairy bunch of stuff was indeed the first 
of five little birds. 

" They are dreadful-looking things," said Mary ; " I did n't 
know that little birds began by looking so badly." 

"They seem to be all mouth," said Jamie. 

"We must feed them," said Charlie. 

" Here, little birds, here 's some gingerbread for you," he 
said ; and he threw a bit of his gingerbread, which fortu- 
nately only hit the nest on the outside, and fell down among 
the buttercups, where two crickets made a meal of it, and 



30 THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 

agreed that it was as excellent gingerbread as if old Mothei 
Cricket herself had made it. 

"Take care, Charlie," said his mamma; "we do not know 
enough to feed young birds. We must leave it to their 
papa and mamma, who probably started out blight and 
early in the morning to get breakfast for them." 

Sure enough, while they were speaking, back came Mr. 
and Mrs. Robin, whirring through the green shadows of 
the apple-tree ; and thereupon all the five little red mouths 
flew open, and the birds put something into each. 

It was great amusement, after this, to watch the daily 
feeding of the little birds, and to observe how, when not 
feeding them, the mother sat brooding on the nest, warm- 
ing them under her soft wings, while the father-bird sat on 
the tip-top bough of the apple-tree and sang to them. In 
time they grew and grew, and, instead of a nest full of 
little red mouths, there was a nest full of little, fat, speckled 
robins, with round, bright, cunning eyes, just like their 
parents ; and the children began to talk together about 
their birds. 

" I 'm going to give my robin a name," said Mary. " I 
call him Brown-Eyes." 

"And I call mine Tip-Top," said Jamie, "because 1 
know he'll be a tip-top bird." 

"And I call mine singer," said Alice. 

"I 'all mine Toddy," said little Toddlie, who would not 
be behindhand in anything that was going on. 






THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 31 

■ Hurrah for Toddlie ! " said Charlie, " her's is the best 
of all. For my part, I call mine Speckle." 

So then the birds were all made separate characters by 
having each a separate name given it. Brown-Eyes, Tip- 
Top, Singer, Toddy, and Speckle made, as they grew 
bigger, a very crowded nestful of birds. 

Now the children had early been taught to say in a 
little hymn : — 

"Birds in their little nests agree, 

And 't is a shameful sight 

When children of one family 

Fall out, and chide, and fight"; — 

and they thought anything really written and printed in a 
hymn must be true ; therefore they were very much aston- 
ished to see, from day to day, that their little birds in their 
nests did not agree. 

Tip-Top was the biggest and strongest bird, and he was 
always- shuffling and crowding the others, and clamoring 
for the most food ; and when Mrs. Robin came in with a 
nice bit of anything, Tip-Top's red mouth opened so wide, 
and he was so noisy, that one would think the nest was all 
his. His mother used to correct him for these gluttonous 
ways, and sometimes made him wait till all the rest were 
helped before she gave mm a mouthful ; but he generally 
revenged himself in her absence by crowding the others 
and making the nest generally uncomfortable. Speckle, 



32 THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 

however, was a bird of spirit, and he used to peck at Tip- 
Top ; so they would sometimes have a regular sparring- 
match across poor Brown-Eyes, who was a meek, tender 
little fellow, and would sit winking and blinking in fear 
"while his big brothers quarrelled. As to Toddy and Sing- 
er, they turned out to be sister birds, and showed quite a 
feminine talent for chattering ; they used to scold their 
badly behaving brothers in a way that made the nest quite 
lively. 

On the whole, Mr. and Mrs. Robin did not find their 
family circle the peaceable place the poet represents. 

"I say," said Tip-Top one day to them, "this old nest 
is a dull, mean, crowded hole, and it 's quite time some of 
us were out of it ; just give us lessons in flying, won't you, 
and let us go." 

"My dear boy," said Mother Robin, "we shall teach you 
to fly as soon as your wings are strong enough." 

"You are a very little bird," said his father, "and ought 
to be good and obedient, and wait patiently till your wing- 
feathers grow ; and then you can soar away to some 
purpose." 

"Wait for my wing-feathers? Humbug!" Tip-Top would 
say, as he sat balancing with his little short tail on the 
edge of the nest, and looking down through the grass and 
clover-heads below, and up into the blue clouds above. 
" Father and mother are slow old birds ; keep a felloe 



THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 3$ 

back with their confounded notions. If they don't hurry 
up, I '11 take matters into my own claws, and be off some 
day before they know it. Look at those swallows, skim- 
ming and diving through the blue air ! That 's the way 
I want to do." 

"But, dear brother, the way to learn to do that is to be 
good and obedient while we are little, and wait till our 
parents think it best for us to begin." 

" Shut up your preaching," said Tip-Top ; " what do you 
girls know of flying?" 

" About as much as you" said Speckle. " However, I 'm 
sure I don't care how soon you take yourself off, for you 
take up more room than all the rest put together." 

"You mind yourself, Master Speckle, or you'll get some- 
thing you don't like," said Tip-Top, still strutting in a very 
cavalier way on the edge of the nest, and sticking up his 
little short tail quite valiantly. 

" O my darlings," said the mamma, now fluttering home, 
" cannot I ever teach you to live in love ? " 

" It 's all Tip-Top's fault," screamed the other birds in a 
flutter. 

"My fault? Of course, everything in this nest that goes 
wrong is laid to me," said Tip-Top ; " and I '11 ieave it to 
anybody, now, if I crowd anybody. I 've been sitting out- 
side, on the very edge of the nest, and there 's Speckle 
has got my place." 
3 



34 THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 

" Who wants your place ? " said Speckle. " I m sure 
you can come in, if you please." 

"My dear boy," said the mother, "do go into the nest 
and be a good little bird, and then you will be happy." 

" That 's always the talk," said Tip-Top. " I 'm too big 
for the nest, and I want to see the world. It 's full of 
beautiful things, I know. Now there 's the most lovely 
creature, with bright eyes, that comes under the tree every 
day, and wants me to come down in the grass and play 
with her." 

" My son, my son, beware ! " said the frightened mother ; 
"that lovely seeming creature is our dreadful enemy, the 
cat, — a horrid monster, with teeth and claws." 

At this, all the little birds shuddered and cuddled deeper 
in the nest ; only Tip-Top, in his heart, disbelieved it. 
" I 'm too old a bird," said he to himself, " to believe that 
story ; mother is chaffing me. But I '11 show her that I 
can take care of myself." 

So the next morning, after the father and mother were 
gone, Tip-Top got on the edge of the nest again, and 
looked over and saw lovely Miss Pussy washing her face 
among the daisies under the tree, and her hair was sleek 
and white as the daisies, and her eyes were yellow and 
beautiful to behold, and she looked up to the tree be* 
witchingly, and said, " Little birds, little birds, come down 
Pussy wants to play with you." 



THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 35 

" Only look at her ! " said Tip-Top ; " her eyes are like 
gold." 

" No, don't look," said Singer and Speckle. " She will 
bewitch you and then eat you up." 

" I 'd like to see her try to eat me up," said Tip-Top, 
again balancing his short tail over the nest. " Just as if 
she would. She's just the nicest, most innocent creature 
going, and only wants us to have fun. We never do have 
any fun in this old nest ! " 

Then the yellow eyes below shot a bewildering light 
into Tip -Top's eyes, and a voice sounded sweet as silver: 
14 Little birds, little birds, come down ; Pussy wants to play 
with you." 

" Her paws are as white as velvet," said Tip-Top ; " and 
so soft ! I don't believe she has any claws." 

" Don't go, brother, don't ! " screamed both sisters. 

All we know about it is, that a moment after a direful 
scream was heard from the nursery window. " O mamma, 
mamma, do come here ! Tip-Top 's fallen out of the nest, 
and the cat has got him ! " 

Away ran Pussy with foolish little Tip-Top in her 
mouth, and he squeaked dolefully when he felt her sharp 
teeth, Wicked Miss Pussy had no mind to eat him at 
once; she meant just as she said, to "play with him." 
So she ran off to a private place among the currant-bushes, 
while all the little curly heads were scattered up and down 
looking for her 



$6 THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 

Did you ever see a cat play with a bird or a mouse? 
She sets it down, and seems to go off and leave it ; but 
the moment it makes the first movement to get away, — 
pounce ! she springs on it, and shakes it in her mouth ; 
and so she teases and tantalizes it, till she gets ready to 
kill and eat it. I can't say why she does it, except that it 
is a cat's nature ; and it is a very bad nature for foolish 
young robins to get acquainted with. 

" O, where is he ? where is he ? Do find my poor Tip- 
Top," said Jamie, crying as loud as he could scream. " I '11 
kill that horrid cat, — I '11 kill her ! " 

Mr. and Mrs. Robin, who had come home meantime, 
joined their plaintive chirping to the general confusion ; 
and Mrs. Robin's bright eyes soon discovered her poor 
little son, where Pussy was patting and rolling him from 
one paw to the other under the currant-bushes ; and set- 
tling on the bush above, she called the little folks to the 
spot by her cries. 

Jamie plunged under the bush, and caught the cat with 
luckless Tip-Top in her mouth ; and, with one or two good 
thumps, he obliged her to let him go. Tip-Top was not 
dead, but in a sadly draggled and torn state. Some of 
his feathers were torn out, and one of his wings was 
oroken, and hung down in a melancholy way. 

" O, what shall we do for him ? He will die. Poo* 
Tip-Top ! " said the children. 






THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 37 

"Let's put him back into the nest, children," said 
mamma. " His mother will know best what to do with 
him." 

So a ladder was got, and papa climbed up and put poor 
Tip-Top safely into the nest. The cat had shaken all the 
nonsense well out of him ; he was a dreadfully humbled 
young robin. 

The time came at last when all the other birds in the 
nest learned to fly, and fluttered and flew about every- 
where ; but poor melancholy Tip-Top was still confined to 
the nest with a broken wing. Finally, as it became evi- 
dent that it would be long before he could fly, Jamie 
took him out of the nest, and made a nice little cage for 
him, and used to feed him every day, and he would hop 
about and seem tolerably contented ; but it was evident 
that he would be a lame-winged robin all his days. 

Jamie's mother told him that Tip-Top's history was an 
allegory. 

"I don't know what you mean, mamma," said Jamie. 

" When something in a bird's life is like something in a 
boy's life, or when a story is similar in its meaning to 
reality, we call it an allegory. Little boys, when they are 
about half grown up, sometimes do just as Tip-Top did. 
They are in a great hurry to get away from home into 
the great world ; and then Temptation comes, with bright 



38 THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 

eyes and smooth velvet paws, and promises them fun ; and 
they go to bad places ; they get to smoking, and then to 
drinking; and, finally, the bad habit gets them in its teeth 
and claws, and plays with them as a cat does with a 
mouse. They try to reform, just as your robin tried to 
get away from the cat ; but their bad habits pounce on 
them and drag them back. And so, when the time comes 
that they want to begin life, they are miserable, broken- 
down creatures, like your broken-winged robin. 

" So, Jamie, remember, and don't try to be a man before 
your time, and let your parents judge for you while you 
are young ; and never believe in any soft white Pussy, with 
golden eyes, that comes and wants to tempt you to come 
down and play with her. If a big boy offers to teach 
you to smoke a cigar, that is Pussy. If a boy wants you 
to go into a billiard-saloon, that is Pussy. If a boy wants 
you to learn to drink anything with spirit in it, however 
sweetened and disguised, remember, Pussy is there ; and 
Pussy's claws are long, and Pussy's teeth are strong ; and 
if she gives you one shake in your youth, you will be like 
a broken-winged robin all your days." 



MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET 

MISS KATY-DID sat on the branch of a flowering 
Azalia, in her best suit of fine green and silver, 
with wings of point-lace from Mother Nature's finest web. 

Miss Katy was in the very highest possible spirits, be- 
cause her gallant cousin, Colonel Katy-did, had looked in to 
make her a morning visit. It was a fine morning, too, 
which goes for as much among the Katy-dids as among men 
and women. It was, in fact, a morning that Miss Katy 
thought must have been made on purpose for her to enjoy 
herself in. There had been a patter of rain the night be- 
fore, which had kept the leaves awake talking to each other 
till nearly morning, but by dawn the small winds had 
blown brisk little puffs, and whisked the heavens clear and 
bright with their tiny wings, as you have seen Susan clear 
away the cobwebs in your mamma's parlor ; and so now 
there were only left a thousand blinking, burning water- 
drops, hanging like convex mirrors at the end of each leaf, 
and Miss Katy admired herself in each one. 

" Certainly I am a pretty creature," she said to nerself ; 
and when the gallant Colonel said something about being 
dazzled by her beauty, she only tossed her head and took 
it as quite a matter of course. 



40 MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET. 

" The fact is, my dear Colonel," she said, " I am thinking 
of giving a party, and you must help me make out the 
lists." 

"My dear, you make me the happiest of Katy-dids." 

"Now," said Miss Katy-did, drawing an azalia-leaf towards 
her, "let us see, — whom shall we have? The Fireflies, of 
course ; everybody wants them, they are so brilliant ; — a 
little unsteady, to be sure, but quite in the higher circles." 

"Yes, we must have the Fireflies," echoed the Colonel. 

"Well, then, — and the Butterflies and the Moths. Now, 
there 's a trouble. There 's such an everlasting tribe of 
those Moths ; and if you invite dull people they 're always 
sure all to come, every one of them. Still, if you have 
the Butterflies, you can't leave out the Moths. 

"Old Mrs. Moth has been laid up lately with a gastric 
fever, and that may keep two or three of the Misses Moth 
at home," said the Colonel. 

" Whatever could give the old lady such a turn?" said 
Miss Katy. "I thought she never was sick." 

" I suspect it 's high living. I understand she and her 
family ate up a whole ermine cape last month, and it dis- 
agreed with them. 

"For my part, I can't conceive how the Moths can live 
as they do," said Miss Katy, with a face of disgust. Why 
I could no more eat worsted and fur, as they do — " 

"That is quite evident from the fairy- like delicacy of 



MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET. 4 1 

your appearance," said the Colonel. " One can see that noth- 
ing so gross or material has ever entered into your system." 

" I 'm sure," said Miss Katy, " mamma says she don't 
know what does keep me alive ; half a dewdrop and a 
little bit of the nicest part of a rose-leaf, I assure you, 
often last me for a day. But we are forgetting our list. 
Let 's see, — the Fireflies, Butterflies, Moths. The Bees 
must come, I suppose." 

"The Bees are a worthy family," said the Colonel. 

"Wo -thy enough, but dreadfully humdrum," said Miss 
Katy. They never talk about anything but honey and 
housekeeping ; still, they are a class of people one cannot 
neglect." 

"Well, then, there are the Bumble-Bees." 

" O, I doat on them ! General Bumble is one of the 
most dashing, brilliant fellows of the day." 

"I think he is shockingly corpulent," said Colonel Katy- 
did, not at all pleased to hear him praised; — "don't you?" 

" I don't know but he is a little stout," said Miss Katy ; 
"but so distinguished and elegant in his manners, — some- 
thing martial and breezy about him." 

"Well, if you invite the Bumble-Bees you must have 
the Hornets." 

" Those spiteful Hornets, — I detest them ! " 

"Nevertheless, dear Miss Katy, one does not like to 
Dffend the Hornets." 



4-2 MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET, 

*"No, one can't. There are those five Misses Hornet,— 
dreadful old maids ! — as full of spite as they can live. 
You may be sure they will every one come, and be look- 
ing about to make spiteful remarks. Put down the Hor- 
nets, though." 

" How about the Mosquitos ! " said the Colonel. 

"Those horrid Mosquitos, — they are dreadfully plebeian! 
Can't one cut them ? " 

"Well, dear Miss Katy," said the Colonel, "if you ask 
my candid opinion as a friend, I should say not. There 's 
young Mosquito, who graduated last year, has gone into 
literature, and is connected with some of our leading pa- 
pers, and they say he carries the sharpest pen of all the 
writers. It won't do to offend him." 

"And so I suppose we must have his old aunts, and all 
six of his sisters, and all his dreadfully common relations." 

"It is a pity," said the Colonel, "but one must pay 
one's tax to society." 

Just at this moment the conference was interrupted by 
a visitor, Miss Keziah Cricket, who came in with her work- 
bag on her arm to ask a subscription for a poor family of 
Ants who had just had their house hoed up in clearing the 
garden-walks. 

"How stupid of them," said Katy, "not to know better 
than to put their house in the garden-walk ; that 's just 
like those Ants!" 



MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET. 43 

" Well, they are in great trouble ; all their stores de- 
stroyed, and their father killed, — cut quite in two by a 
hoe." 

" How very shocking ! I don't like to hear of such dis- 
agreeable things, — it affects my nerves terribly. Well, I 'm 
sure I have n't anything to give. Mamma said yesterday 
she was sure she did n't know how our bills were to be 
paid, — and there 's my green satin with point-lace yet to 
come home." And Miss Katy-did shrugged her shoulders 
and affected to be very busy with Colonel Katy-did, in 
just the way that young ladies sometimes do when they 
wish to signify to visitors that they had better leave. 

Little Miss Cricket perceived how the case stood, and 
so hopped briskly off, without giving herself even time to 
be offended. " Poor extravagant little thing ! " said she to 
herself, "it was hardly worth while to ask her." 

" Pray, shall you invite the Crickets ? " said Colonel 
Katy-did. 

" Who ? I ? Why, Colonel, what a question ! Invite 
the Crickets ? Of what can you be thinking ? " 

" And shall you not ask the Locusts, or the Grass- 
hoppers ? " 

" Certainly. The Locusts, of course, — a very old and 
distinguished family ; and the Grasshoppers are pretty well, 
and ought to be asked. But we must draw a line some- 
where, — and the Crickets ! why, it *s shocking even to 
think of!" 



44 MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET. 

"I thought they were nice, respectable people." 
"O, perfectly nice and respectable, — very good peopic, 
in fact, so far as that goes. But then you must see the 
difficulty." 

"My dear cousin, I am afraid you must explain." 
" Why, their color, to be sure. Don't you see ? " 
" Oh ! " said the Colonel. " That 's it, is it ? Excuse 
me, but I have been living in France, where these dis- 
tinctions are wholly unknown, and I have not yet got 
myself in the train of fashionable ideas here." 

"Well, then, let me teach you," said Miss Katy. "You 
know we republicans go for no distinctions except those 
created by Nature herself, and we found our rank upon 
color, because that is clearly a thing that none has any 
hand in but our Maker. You see?" 

" Yes ; but who decides what color shall be the reigning 
color?" 

" I 'm surprised to hear the question ! The only true 
color — the only proper one — is our color, to be sure. A 
lovely pea-green is the precise shade on which to found 
aristocratic distinction. But then we are liberal ; — we as- 
sociate with the Moths, who are gray ; with the Butterflies, 
who are blue-and-gold-colored ; with the Grasshoppers, yel- 
low and brown ; — and society would become dreadfully 
mixed if it were not fortunately ordered that the Crickets 
are black as jet. The fact is, that a class to be looked 



MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET. 



45 








down upon is necessary to all elegant society, and if the 
Crickets were not V.ack, we could not keep them down, 



46 MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET. 

because, as everybody knows, they are often a great dea. 
cleverer than we are. They have a vast talent for music 
and dancing ; they are very quick at learning, and would 
be getting to the very top of the ladder if we once al- 
lowed them to climb. But their being black is a conven- 
ience, — because, as long as we are green and they black, 
we have a superiority that can never be taken from us. 
Don't you see, now ? " 

"O yes, I see exactly," said the Colonel. 

"Now that Keziah Cricket, who just came in here, is 
quite a musician, and her old father plays the violin beau- 
tifully ; — by the way, we might engage him for our or- 
chestra," 

And so Miss Katy's ball came off, and the performers 
kept it up from sundown till daybreak, so that it seemed 
as if every leaf in the forest were alive. The Katy-dids, 
and the Mosquitos, and the Locusts, and a full orchestra 
of Crickets made the air perfectly vibrate, insomuch that 
old Parson Too-Whit, who was preaohing a Thursday even- 
ng lecture to a very small audience, announced to his 
hearers that he should certainly write a discourse against 
dancing for the next weekly occasion. 

The good Doctor was even with his word in the mat- 
ter, and gave out some very sonorous discourses, without 
in the least stopping the round of gayeties kept up b) 



MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET. 47 

these dissipated Katy-dids, which ran on, night after night, 
till the celebrated Jack Frost epidemic, which occurred 
somewhere about the first of September. 

Poor Miss Katy, with her flimsy green satin and point- 
lace, was one of the first victims, and fell from the bough 
in company with a sad shower of last year's leaves. The 
worthy Cricket family, however, avoided Jack Frost by 
emigrating in time to the chimney-corner of a nice little 
cottage that had been built in the wood that summer. 

There good old Mr. and Mrs. Cricket, with sprightly 
Miss Keziah and her brothers and sisters, found a warm 
and welcome home ; and when the storm howled without, 
and lashed the poor naked trees, the Crickets on the warm 
hearth would chirp out cheery welcome to papa as he 
came in from the snowy path, or mamma as she sat at 
her work-basket. 

"Cheep, cheep, cheep!" little Freddy would say. "Mam- 
ma, who is it says ' cheep ' 5 " 

"Dear Freddy, it 's our own dear little cricket, who 
loves us and comes to sing to us when the snow is on 
the ground." 

So when poor Miss Katy-c'id's satin and lace were all 
swept away, the warm home-talents of the Crickets made 
for them a welcome refuge. 



MOTHER MAGPIE'S MISCHIEF. 

/^\LD MOTHER MAGPIE was about the busiest char- 
^^ acter in the forest. But you must know that there 
is a great difference between being busy and being indus- 
trious. One may be very busy all the time, and yet not 
in the least industrious ; and this was the case with Mother 
Magpie. 

She was always full of everybody's business but her own, 
— up and down, here and there, everywhere but in her 
own nest, knowing every one's affairs, telling what every- 
body had been doing or ought to do, and ready to cast 
her advice gratis at every bird and beast of the woods. 

Now she bustled up to the parsonage at the top of 
the oak-tree, to tell old Parson Too-Whit what she thought 
he ought to preach for his next sermon, and how dreadful 
the morals of the parish were becoming. Then, having 
perfectly bewildered the poor old gentleman, who was al- 
ways sleepy of a Monday morning, Mother Magpie would 
take a peep into Mrs. Oriole's nest, sit chattering on a 
bough above, and pour forth floods of advice, which, poor 
little Mrs. Oriole used to say to her husband, bewildered 
her more than a hard northeast storm. 

"Depend upon it, my dear," Mother Magpie would say 



MOTHER MAGPIE S MISCHIEF. 49 

"that this way of building your nest, swinging like an old 
empty stocking from a bough, is n't at all the thing. I 
never built one so in my life, and I never have headaches. 
Now you complain always that your head aches whenever 
I call upon you. It 's all on account of this way of 
swinging and swaying about in such an absurd manner." 

"But, my dear," piped Mrs. Oriole, timidly, "the Orioles 
always have built in this manner, and it suits our consti- 
tution." 

" A fiddle on your constitution ! How can you tell what 
agrees with your constitution unless you try ? You own 
you are not well ; you are subject to headaches, and every 
physician will tell you that a tilting motion disorders the 
stomach and acts upon the brain. Ask old Dr. Kite. I 
was talking with him about your case only yesterday, and 
says he, ' Mrs. Magpie, I perfectly agree with you.' " 

"But my husband prefers this style of building." 

" That 's only because he is n't properly instructed. Pray, 
did you ever attend Dr. Kite's lectures on the nervous 
system ? " 

"No, I have no time to attend lectures. Who would 
let on the eggs ? " 

" Why, your husband, to be sure ; don't he take his 
turn in setting ? If he don't, he ought to. I shall speak to 
aim about it. My husband always sets regularly half the 
time, that I might have time to go about and exercise" 
4 



50 MOTHER MAGPIE'S MISCHIEF. 

" O Mrs. Magpie, pray don't speak to my husband ; ht 
will think I 've been complaining." 

" No, no, he won't ! Let me alone. I understand just 
how to say the thing. I 've advised hundreds of young 
husbands in my day, and I never give offence." 

"But I tell you, Mrs. Magpie, I don't want any inter- 
ference between my husband and me, and I will not have 
it," says Mrs. Oriole, with her little round eyes flashing 
with indignation. 

"Don't put yourself in a passion, my dear; the more 
you talk, the more sure I am that your nervous system is 
running down, or you would n't forget good manners in this 
way. You 'd better take my advice, for I understand just 
what to do," — and away sails Mother Magpie ; and pres- 
ently young Oriole comes home, all in a flutter. 

"I say, my dear, if you will persist in gossiping over 
our private family matters with that old Mother Magpie — " 

" My dear, I don't gossip ; she comes and bores me to 
death with talking, and then goes off and mistakes what 
she has been saying for what I said." 

"But you must cut her." 

" I try to, all I can ; but she won't be cut. 

" It 's enough to make a bird swear," said Tommy Oriole. 

Tommy Oriole, to say the truth, had as good a heart as 
tver beat under bird's feathers ; but then he had a weakness 
for concerts and general society, because he was held to be 



MOTHER MAGPIES MISCHIEF. 5 1 

by all odds, the handsomest bird in the woods, and sung 
like an angel ; and so the truth was he did n't confine him- 
self so much to the domestic nest as Tom Titmouse or Billy 
Wren. But he determined that he would n't have old 
Mother Magpie interfering with his affairs. 

" The fact is," quoth Tommy, " I am a society bird, and 
Nature has marked out for me a course beyond the range 
of the commonplace, and my wife must learn to accommodate. 
If she has a brilliant husband, whose success gratifies her 
ambition and places her in a distinguished public position, 
she must pay something for it. I 'm sure Billy Wren's wife 
would give her very bill to see her husband in the circles 
where I am quite at home. To say the truth, my wife was 
all well enough content till old Mother Magpie interfered. 
It is quite my duty to take strong ground, and show that 
I cannot be dictated to." 

So, after this, Tommy Oriole went to rather more con- 
certs, and spent less time at home than ever he did before, 
which was all that Mother Magpie effected in that quarter. 
I confess this was very bad in Tommy ; but then birds are 
nc better than men in domestic matters, and sometimes will 
take the most unreasonable courses, if a meddlesome Mag- 
pie gets her claw into their nest. 

But old Mother Magpie had now got a new business in 
aand in another quarter. She bustled off down to Water- 
dock Lane, where, as we said in a former narrative, lived 



52 MOTHER MAGPIES MISCHIEF. 

the old music-teacher, Dr. Bullfrog. The poor old Doctor 
was a simple-minded, good, amiable creature, who had played 
the double-bass and led the forest choir on all public occa- 
sions since nobody knows when. Latterly some youngsters 
had arisen who sneered at his performances as behind the 
age. In fact, since a great city had grown up in the vicinity 
of the forest, tribes of wandering boys broke up the simple 
tastes and quiet habits which old Mother Nature had always 
kept up in those parts. They pulled the young checker- 
berry before it even had time to blossom, rooted up the 
sassafras shrubs and gnawed their roots, fired off guns at 
the birds, and, on several occasions when old Dr. Bullfrog 
was leading a concert, had dashed in and broken up the 
choir by throwing stones. 

This was not the worst of it. The little varlets had a 
way of jeering at the simple old Doctor and his concerts, 
and mimicking the tones of his bass-viol. "There you go, 
Paddy-go-donk, Paddy-go-donk — umph — chunk," some ras- 
cal of a boy would shout, while poor old Bullfrog's yellow 
spectacles would be bedewed with tears of honest indignation. 
In time, the jeers of these little savages began to tell on 
the society in the forest, and to corrupt their simple man- 
ners ; and it was whispered among the younger and more 
heavy birds and squirrels, that old Bullfrog was a bore, and 
hat it was time to get up a new style of music in the 
parish, and to give the charge of it to some more moderr 
performer. 



MOTHER MAGPIES MISCHIEF. 



53 



Poor old Dr. Bullfrog knew nothing of this, however, and 
was doing his simple best, in peace, when Mother Magpie 
railed in upon him, one morning. 




" Well, neighbor, how unreasonable people are ! Who 
would have thought that the youth of our generation should 
have no more consideration for established merit ? Now, for 
ay part, / think your music-teaching never was better ; and 
as for our choir, I maintain constantly that it never was 
in better order, but — Well, one may wear her tongue out, 
,ut one can never make these voung folks listen to reason." 



54 MOTHER MAGPIE S MISCHIEF. 

"I really dorit understand you, ma'am," said poor Dr. 
Bullfrog. 

" What ! you have n't heard of a committee that is going 
to call on you, to ask you to resign the care of the parish 
music ? " 

" Madam," said Dr. Bullfrog, with all that energy of tone 
for which he was remarkable, " I don't believe it, — I can't 
believe it. You must have made a mistake." 

" I mistake ! No, no, my good friend ; I never make 
mistakes. What I know, I know certainly. Was n't it I 
that said I knew there was an engagement between Tim 
Chipmunk and Nancy Nibble, who are married this blessed 
day ? I knew that thing six weeks before any bird or beast 
in our parts ; and I can tell you, you are going to be 
scandalously and ungratefully treated, Dr. Bullfrog." 

" Bless me, we shall all be ruined ! " said Mrs. Bullfrog ; 
"my poor husband — " 

" O, as to that, if you take things in time, and listen to 
my advice," said Mother Magpie, "we may yet pull you 
through. You must alter your style a little, — adapt it to 
modern times. Everybody now is a little touched with the 
iperatic fever, and there 's Tommy Oriole has been to 
New Orleans and brought back a touch of the artistic. If 
you would try his style a little, — something Tyrolean, voir 
see." 

"Dear madam, consider my voice. I never could hit the 
high notes." 



MOTHER MAGPIES MISCHIEF. 55 

" How do you know ? It 's all practice ; Tommy Oriole 
says so. Just try the scales. As to your voice, your man- 
ner of living has a great deal to do with it. I always did 
tell you that your passion for water injured your singing. 
Suppose Tommy Oriole should sit half his days up to his 
hips in water, as you do, — his voice would be as hoarse 
and rough as yours. Come up on the bank, and learn to 
perch, as we birds do. We are the true musical race." 

And so, poor Mr. Bullfrog was persuaded to forego his 
pleasant little cottage under the cat-tails, where his green 
spectacles and honest round back had excited, even in the 
minds of the boys, sentiments of respect and compassion. 
He came up into the garden, and established himself under 
a burdock, and began to practise Italian scales. 

The result was, that poor old Dr. Bullfrog, instead of 
being considered as a respectable old bore, got himself uni- 
versally laughed at for aping fashionable manners. Every 
bird and oeast in the forest had a gibe at him ; and even 
old Parson Too-Whit thought it worth his while to make 
him a pastoral call, and admonish him about courses un- 
befitting his age and standing. As to Mother Magpie, you 
may be sure that she assured every one how sorry she was 
hat dear old Dr. Bullfrog had made such a fool of him- 
self; if he had taken her advice, he would have kept on 
respectably as a nice old Bullfrog should. 

But the tragedy for the poor old music-teacher grew even 



$6 MOTHER MAGPIE'S MISCHIEF. 

more melancholy in its termination ; for one day as he was 
sitting disconsolately under a currant-bush in the garden, 
practising his poor old notes in a quiet way, thump came 
a great blow of a hoe, which nearly broke his back. 

" Hullo ! what ugly beast have we got here ? " said Tom 
Noakes, the gardener's boy. " Here, here, Wasp, my boy." 

What a fright for a poor, quiet, old Bullfrog, as little 
wiry, wicked Wasp came at him, barking and yelping. He 
jumped with all his force sheer over a patch of bushes into 
the river, and swam back to his old home among the cat- 
tails. And always after that it was observable that he was 
very low-spirited, and took very dark views of life ; but 
nothing made him so angry as ^ny allusion to Mother 
Magpie, of whom, from that time, bt r»e^e* sp<*k^ except 
as Old Mother Mischief. 



THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE. 

ONCE upon a time a gentleman went out into a great 
forest, and cut away the trees, and built there a very 
nice little cottage. It was set very low on the ground, 
and had very large bow-windows, and so much of it was 
glass that one could look through it on every side and see 
what was going on in the forest. You could see the shad- 
ows of the fern-leaves, as they flickered and wavered ovei 
the ground, and the scarlet partridge-berry and wintergreen 
plums that matted round the roots of the trees, and the 
bright spots of sunshine that fell through their branches 
and went dancing about among the bushes and leaves at 
their roots. You could see the little chipping sparrows and 
thrushes and robins and bluebirds building their nests here 
and there among the branches, and watch them from day 
to day as they laid their eggs and hatched their young. 
You could also see red squirrels, and gray squirrels, and 
little striped chip-squirrels, darting and springing about, 
here and there and everywhere, running races with each 
other from bough to bough, and chattering at each other 
in the gayest possible manner. 

You may be sure that such a strange thing as a great 
mortal house for human beings to live in diJ not come 



58 THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE. 

mto this wild wood without making quite a stir and excite- 
ment among the inhabitants that lived there before. All 
the time it was building, there was the greatest possible 
commotion in the breasts of all the older population ; and 
there was n't even a black ant, or a cricket, that did not 
have his own opinion about it, and did not tell the other 
ants and crickets just what he thought the world was 
coming to in consequence. 

Old Mrs. Rabbit declared that the hammering and pound- 
ing made her nervous, and gave her most melancholy fore- 
bodings of evil times. "Depend upon it, children," she 
said to her long-eared family, "no good will come to us 
from this establishment. Where man is, there comes always 
trouble for us poor rabbits." 

The old chestnut-tree, that grew on the edge of the 
woodland ravine, drew a great sigh which shook all his 
leaves, and expressed it as his conviction that no good 
would ever come of it, — a conviction that at once struck 
to the heart of every chestnut-burr. The squirrels talked 
ogether of the dreadful state of things that would ensue. 
" Why ! " said old Father Gray, " it 's evident that Nature 
made the nuts for us ; but one of these great human 
creatures will carry off and gormandize upon what would 
keep a hundred poor families of squirrels in comfort." Old 
Ground-mole said it did not require very sharp eyes to see 
into the future, and it would just end in bringing dowc 



THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE. 59 

the price of real estate in the whole vicinity, so that every 
decent-minded and respectable quadruped would be obliged 
to move away ; — for his part, he was ready to sell out for 
anything he could get. The bluebirds and bobolinks, it is 
true, took more cheerful views of matters ; but then, as old 
Mrs. Ground-mole observed, they were a flighty set, — half 
their time careering and dissipating in the Southern States, 
— and could not be expected to have that patriotic attach- 
ment to their native soil that those had who had grubbed 
in it from their earliest days. 

"This race of man," said the old chestnut-tree, "is never 
ceasing in its restless warfare on Nature. In our forest 
solitudes, hitherto, how peacefully, how quietly, how regu- 
larly has everything gone on ! Not a flower has missed 
its appointed time of blossoming, or failed to perfect its 
fruit. No matter how hard has been the winter, how loud 
the winds have roared, and how high the snow-banks have 
been piled, all has come right again in spring. Not the 
least root has lost itself under the snows, so as not to be 
ready with its fresh leaves and blossoms when the sun 
returns to melt the frosty chains of winter. We have 
storms sometimes that threaten to shake everything to 
pieces, — the thunder roars, the lightning flashes, and the 
winds howl and beat ; but, when all is past, everything 
comes out better and brighter than before, — not a bird is 
killed, not the frailest flower destroyed. But man comes, 



60 THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE. 

and in one day he will make a desolation that centuries 
cannot repair. Ignorant boor that he is, and all incapable 
of appreciating the glorious works of Nature, it seems to 
be his glory to be able to destroy in a few hours what it 
was the work of ages to produce. The noble oak, that has 
been cut away to build this contemptible human dwelling, 
had a life older and wiser than that of any man in this 
country. That tree has seen generations of men come and 
go. It was a fresh young tree when Shakespeare was 
born ; it was hardly a middle-aged tree when he died ; it 
was growing here when the first ship brought the white 
men to our shores, and hundreds and hundreds of those 
whom they call bravest, wisest, strongest, — warriors, states- 
men, orators, and poets, — have been born, have grown up, 
lived, and died, while yet it has outlived them all. It has 
seen more wisdom than the best of them ; but two or three 
hours of brutal strength sufficed to lay it low. Which of 
these dolts could make a tree ? I 'd like to see them do 
anything like it. How noisy and clumsy are all their move- 
ments, — chopping, pounding, rasping, hammering ! And, 
after all, what do they build? In the forest we do every- 
thing so quietly. A tree would be ashamed of itself that 
could not get its growth without making such a noise and 
dust and fuss. Our life is the perfection of good manners. 
For my part, I feel degraded at the mere presence of these 
human beings ; but, alas ! I am old ; — a hollow place at 



THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE. 6 1 

my heart warns me of the progress of decay, and probably 
jt will be seized upon by these rapacious creatures as an 
excuse for laying me as low as my noble green brother." 

In spite of all this disquiet about it, the little cottage 
grew and was finished. The walls were covered with 
pretty paper, the floors carpeted with pretty carpets ; and, 
in fact, when it was all arranged, and the garden walks 
laid out, and beds of flowers planted around, it began to 
be confessed, even among the most critical, that it was 
not after all so bad a thing as was to have been feared. 

A black ant went in one day and made a tour of ex- 
ploration up and down, over chairs and tables, up the 
ceilings and down again, and, coming out, wrote an arti- 
cle for the Crickets' Gazette, in which he described the 
new abode as a veritable palace. Several butterflies flut- 
tered in and sailed about and were wonderfully delighted, 
and then a bumble-bee and two or three honey-bees, who 
expressed themselves well pleased with the house, but more 
especially enchanted with the garden. In fact, when it was 
found that the proprietors were very fond of the rural soli- 
tudes of Nature, and had come out there for the purpose 
of enjoying them undisturbed, — that they watched and 
spared the anemones, and the violets, and bloodroots, and 
dog's-tooth violets, and little woolly rolls of fern that began 
to grow up under the trees in spring, — that they never 
allowed a gun to be fired to scare the birds, and watched 



62 THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE 

the building of their nests with the greatest interest,— 
then an opinion in favor of human beings began to gain 
ground, and every cricket and bird and beast was loud 
in their praise. 

"Mamma," said young Tit-bit, a frisky young squirrel, 
to his mother one day, " why won't you let Frisky and me 
go into that pretty new cottage to play?" 

" My dear," said his mother, who was a very wary and 
careful old squirrel, " how can you think of it ? The race 
of man are full of devices for traps and pitfalls, and who 
could say what might happen, if you put yourself in their 
power? If you had wings like the butterflies and bees, 
you might fly in and out again, and so gratify your curi- 
osity ; but, as matters stand, it 's best for you to keep well 
out of their way." 

" But mother, there is such a nice, good lady lives there ! 
I believe she is a good fairy, and she seems to love us all 
so ; she sits in the bow-window and watches us for hours, 
and she scatters corn all round at the roots of the tree 
for us to eat." 

" She is nice enough," said the old mother-squirrel, " if 
you keep far enough off; but I tell you, you can't be too 
careful." 

Now this good fairy that the squirrels discoursed about 
was a nice little old lady that the children used to cal 1 
Aunt Esther, and she was a dear lover of birds and squir 



THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE. 63 

rels, and all sorts of animals, and had studied their little 
ways till she knew just what would please them; and so 
she would every day throw out crumbs for the sparrows, 
and little bits of bread and wool and cotton to help the 
birds that were building their nests, and would scatter corn 
and nuts for the squirrels ; and while she sat at her work 
in the bow-window she would smile to see the birds fly- 
ing away with the wool, and the squirrels nibbling their 
nuts. After a while the birds grew so tame that they 
would hop into the bow-window, and eat their crumbs off 
the carpet. 

"There, mamma," said Tit-bit and Frisky, "only see! 
Jenny Wren and Cock Robin have been in at the bow- 
window, and it did n't hurt them, and why can't we go ? " 

" Well, my dears," said old Mother Squirrel, " you must 
do it very carefully : never forget that you have n't wings 
like Jenny Wren and Cock Robin." 

So the next day Aunt Esther laid a train of corn from 
che roots of the trees to the bow-window, and then from 
the bow-window to her work-basket, which stood on the 
floor beside her ; and then she put quite a handful of 
corn in the work-basket, and sat down by it, and seemed 
intent on her sewing. Very soon, creep, creep, creep, 
came Tit- bit and Frisky to the window, and then into 
the room, just as sly and as still as could be, and Aunt 
Lsther sat just like a statue for fear of disturbing them. 



64 THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE. 

They looked all around in high glee, and when they came 
to the basket it seemed to them a wonderful little summer- 
house, made on purpose for them to play in. They nosed 
about in it, and turned over the scissors and the needle- 
book, and took a nibble at her white wax, and jostled the 
spools, meanwhile stowing away the corn each side of their 
little chops, till they both of them looked as if they had 
the mumps. 

At last Aunt Esther put out her hand to touch them, 
when, whisk-frisk, out they went, and up the trees, chat- 
tering and laughing before she had time even to wink. 

But after this they used to come in every day, and when 
she put corn in her hand and held it very still they would 
eat out of it ; and, finally, they would get into her hand, 
until one day she gently closed it over them, and Frisky 
and Tit-bit were fairly caught. 

O, how their hearts beat ! but the good fairy only spoke 
gently to them, and soon unclosed her hand and let them 
go again. So, day after day, they grew to have more and 
more faith in her, till they would climb into her work-basket, 
sit on her shoulder, or nestle away in her lap as she sat 
sewing. They made also long exploring voyages all over the 
house, up and through all the chambers, till finally, I grieve 
to say, poor Frisky came to an untimely end by being 
drowned in the water-tank at the top of the house. 

The dear good fairy passed away from the house in time, 



THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE. 



65 




and went to a land where the flowers never fade, and the 
birds never die ; but the squirrels still continue to make 
the place a favorite resort. 

"In fact, my dear," said old Mother Red one winter to 
her mate, "what is the use of one's living in this cold, hol- 
'ow tree, when these amiable people have erected this pretty 
.ottage where there is plenty of room for us and them too? 
Now I have examined between the eaves, and there is a 
charming place where we can store our nuts, and where 
we can whip in and out of the garret, and have the free 
range of the house ; and, say what you will, these humans 
5 



56 THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE. 

have delightful ways of being warm and comfortably in 
winter." 

So Mr. and Mrs. Red set up housekeeping in the cottage, 
and had no end of nuts and other good things stored up 
there. The trouble of all this was, that, as Mrs. Red was 
a notable body, and got up to begin her housekeeping 
operations, and woke up all her children, at four o'clock 
in the morning, the good people often were disturbed by a 
great rattling and fuss in the walls, while yet it seemed 
dark night. Then sometimes, too, I grieve to say, Mrs. 
Squirrel would give her husband vigorous curtain lectures 
in the night, which made him so indignant that he would 
rattle off to another quarter of the garret to sleep by him- 
self; and all this broke the rest of the worthy people who 
built the house. 

What is to be done about this we don't know. What 
would you do about it ? Would you let the squirrels live 
in your house, or not? When our good people come down 
of a cold winter morning, and see the squirrels dancing and 
frisking down the trees, and chasing each other so merrily 
over the garden-chair between them, or sitting with their 
tails saucily over their backs, they look so jolly and jaunty 
and pretty that they almost forgive them for disturbing 
their night's rest, and think that they will not do anything 
to drive them out of the garret to-day. And so it goes 
on ; but how long the squirrels will rent the cottage in this 
fashion, I 'm sure I dare not undertake to say. 



HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 

A T Rye Beach, during our summer's vacation, there 
**- ** came, as there always will to seaside visitors, two or 
three cold, chilly, rainy days, — days when the skies that 
long had not rained a drop seemed suddenly to bethink 
themselves of their remissness, and to pour down water, 
not by drops, but by pailfuls. The chilly wind blew and 
whistled, the water dashed along the ground, and careered 
in foamy rills along the roadside, and the bushes bent 
beneath the constant flood. It was plain that there was 
to be no sea-bathing on such a day, no walks, no rides ; 
and so, shivering and drawing our blanket-shawls close 
about us, we sat down to the window to watch the storm 
outside. The rose-bushes under the window hung dripping 
under their load of moisture, each spray shedding a con- 
stant shower on the spray below it. On one of these 
lower sprays, under the perpetual drip, what should we 
see but a poor little humming-bird, drawn up into the 
tiniest shivering ball, and clinging with a desperate grasp 
to his uncomfortable perch. A humming-bird we knew 
him to be at once, though his feathers were so matted and 
glued down by tne rain tnat he looked not much bigger 
than a honey-bee, and as different as possible from the 



58 HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 

smart, pert, airy little character that we had so often seen 
flirting with the flowers. He was evidently a humming- 
bird in adversity, and whether he ever would hum again 
looked to us exceedingly doubtful. Immediately, however, 
we sent out to have him taken in. When the friendly 
hand seized him, he gave a little, faint, watery squeak, evi- 
dently thinking that his last hour was come, and that grim 
Death was about to carry him off to the land of dead 
birds. What a time we had reviving him, — holding the 
little wet thing in the warm hollow of our hands, and 
feeling him shiver and palpitate ! His eyes were fast 
closed ; his tiny claws, which looked slender as cobwebs, 
were knotted close to his body, and it was long before one 
could feel the least motion in them. Finally, to our great 
joy, we felt a brisk little kick, and then a flutter of wings, 
and then a determined peck of the beak, which showed 
that there was some bird left in him yet, and that he 
meant at any rate to find out where he was. 

Unclosing our hands a small space, out popped the lit- 
tle head with a pair of round brilliant eyes. Then we 
bethought ourselves of feeding him, and forthwith prepared 
him a stiff glass of sugar and water, a drop of which we 
held to his bill. After turning his head attentively, like 
a bird who knew what he was about and didn't mean to 
be chaffed, he briskly put out a long, flexible tongue 
slightly forked at the end, and licked off the comfortable 



HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 69 

beverage with great relish. Immediately he was pronounced 
out of danger by the small humane society which had un- 
dertaken the charge of his restoration, and we began to 
cast about for getting him a settled establishment in our 
apartment. I gave up my work-box to him for a sleeping- 
room; and it was medically ordered that he should take 
a nap. So we filled the box with cotton, and he was 
formally put to bed with a folded cambric handkerchief 
round his neck, to keep him from beating his wings. Out 
of his white wrappings he looked forth green and grave 
as any judge with his bright round eyes. Like a bird of 
discretion, he seemed to understand what was being done 
to him, and resigned himself sensibly to go to sleep. 

The box was covered with a sheet of paper perforated 
with holes for purposes of ventilation ; for even humming- 
birds have a little pair of lungs, and need their own little 
portion of air to fill them, so that they may make bright 
scarlet little drops of blood to keep life's fire burning in 
their tiny bodies. Our bird's lungs manufactured bril- 
liant blood, as we found out by experience ; for in his 
first nap he contrived to nestle himself into the cotton of 
which his bed was made, and to get more of it than he 
needed into his long bill. We pulled it out as carefully 
as we could, but there came out of his bill two round, 
bright, scarlet, little drops of blood. Our chief medical 
authority looked g r ave, pronounced a probable hemor< 



/O HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 

rhage from the lungs, and gave him over at once. We, 
less scientific, declared that we had only cut his little 
tongue by drawing out the filaments of cotton, and that he 
would do well enough in time, — as it afterward appeared 
he did, — for from that day there was no more bleeding. 
In the course of the second day he began to take short 
flights about the room, though he seemed to prefer to 
return to us, — perching on our fingers or heads or 
shoulders, and sometimes choosing to sit in this way 
for half an hour at a time. "These great giants," he 
seemed to say to himself, " are not bad people after all ; 
they have a comfortable way with them ; how nicely they 
dried and warmed me ! Truly a bird might do worse than 
to live with them." 

So he made up his mind to form a fourth in the Uttle 
company of three that usually sat and read, worked and 
sketched, in that apartment, and we christened him " Hum, 
the son of Buz." He became an individuality, a character, 
whose little doings formed a part of every letter, and some 
extracts from these will show what some of his little ways 
were. 

" Hum has learned to sit upon my finger, and eat his 
sugar and water out of a teaspoon with most Christian-like 
decorum. He has but one weakness, — he will occasionally 
jump into the spoon and sit in his sugar and water, and 
then appear to wonder where it goes to. His plumage is 



HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. fl 

m rather a drabbled state, owing to these performances. 
I have sketched him as he sat to-day on a bit of Spiraea 
which I brought in for him. When absorbed in reflection, 
he sits with his bill straight up in the air, as I have 

drawn him. Mr. A reads Macaulay to us, and you 

should see the wise air with which, perched on Jenny's 
thumb, he cocked his head now one side and then the 
other, apparently listening with most critical attention. His 
confidence in us seems unbounded ; he lets us stroke his 
head, smooth his feathers, without a flutter ; and is never 
better pleased than sitting, as he has been doing all this 
while, on my hand, turning up his bill, and watching my 
face with great edification. 

"I have just been having a sort of maternal struggle to 
make him go to bed in his box ; but he evidently consid- 
ers himself sufficiently convalescent to make a stand for his 
rights as a bird, and so scratched indignantly out of his 
wrappings, and set himself up to roost on the edge of the 
box, with an air worthy of a turkey, at the very least. 
Having brought in a lamp, he has opened his eyes round 
and wide, and sits cocking his little head at me reflect- 
ively." 

When the weather cleared away, and the sun came out 
bright, Hum became entirely well, and seemed resolved to 
take the measure of his new life with us. Our windows 
were closed in the lower part of the sash by frames with 



72 HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 

mosquito gauze, so that the sun and air found free admis* 
sion, and yet our little rover could not pass out. On the 
first sunny day he took an exact survey of our apartment 
from ceiling to floor, humming about, examining every 
point with his bill, — all the crevices, mouldings, each little 
indentation in the bed-posts, each window-pane, each chair 
and stand ; and, as it was a very simply furnished seaside 
apartment, his scrutiny was soon finished. We wondered, 
at first, what this was all about ; but, on watching him 
more closely, we found that he was actively engaged in 
getting his living, by darting out his long tongue hither 
and thither, and drawing in all the tiny flies and insects 
which in summer-time are to be found in an apartment. 
In short, we found that, though the nectar of flowers was 
his dessert, yet he had his roast beef and mutton-chop to 
look after, and that his bright, brilliant blood was not 
made out of a simple vegetarian diet. Very shrewd and 
keen he was, too, in measuring the size of insects before 
he attempted to swallow them. The smallest class were 
whisked off with lightning speed ; but about larger ones he 
would sometimes wheel and hum for some minutes, dart- 
ing hither and thither, and surveying them warily; and if 
satisfied that they could be carried, he would come down 
with a quick, central dart which would finish the unfortu- 
nate at a snap. The larger flies seemed to irritate him, — 
especially when they intimated to him that his p]umage 



HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 73 

was sugary, by settling on his wings and tail ; when he 
would lay about him spitefully, wielding his bill like a 
sword. A grasshopper that strayed in, and was sunning 
himself on the window-seat, gave him great discomposure. 
Hum evidently considered him an intruder, and seemed to 
long to make a dive at him ; but, with characteristic pru- 
dence, confined himself to threatening movements, which 
did not exactly hit. He saw evidently that he could not 
swallow him whole, and what might ensue from trying 
him piecemeal he wisely forbore to essay. 

Hum had his own favorite places and perches. From 
the first day he chose for his nightly roost a towel-line 
which had been drawn across the corner over the wash- 
stand, where he every night established himself with one 
slaw in the edge of the towel and the other clasping the 
line, and, ruffling up his feathers till he looked like a little 
chestnut-burr, he would resign himself to the soundest sleep. 
He did not tuck his head under his wing, but seemed to 
sink it down between his shoulders, with his bill almost 
straight up in the air. One evening one of us, going to 
use the towel, jarred the line, and soon after found that 
Hum had been thrown from his perch, and was hanging 
head downward, fast asleep, still clinging to the line. An- 
other evening, being discomposed by somebody coming to 
the towel-line after he had settled himself, he fluttered off; 
but so sleepy that he had not discretion to poise himself 



74 HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 

again, and was found clinging, like a little bunch of green 
floss silk, to the mosquito netting of the window. 

A day after this we brought in a large green bough, and 
put it up over the looking-glass. Hum noticed it before it 
had been there five minutes, flew to it, and began a regu- 
lar survey, perching now here, now there, till he seemed to 
find a twig that exactly suited him ; and after that he 
roosted there every night. Who does not see in this 
change all the signs of reflection and reason that are 
shown by us in thinking over our circumstances, and try- 
ing to better them ? It seemed to say in so many words : 
" That towel-line is an unsafe place for a bird ; I get 
frightened, and wake from bad dreams to find myself head 
downwards ; so I will find a better roost on this twig." 

When our little Jenny one day put on a clean white 
muslin gown embellished with red sprigs, Hum flew towards 
her, and with his bill made instant examination of these 
new appearances ; and one day, being very affectionately 
disposed, perched himself on her shoulder, and sat some 

time. On another occasion, while Mr. A was reading, 

Hum established himself on the top of his head just over 
the middle of his forehead, in the precise place where our 
young belles have lately worn stuffed humming-birds, mak 
ing him look as if dressed out for a party. Hum's most 
favorite perch was the back of the great rocking-chair, which, 
oeing covered by a tidy, gave some hold into which he 



HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 75 

could catch his little claws. There he would sit, balancing 
himse\f cleverly if its occupant chose to swing to and fro, 
and seeming to be listening to the conversation or reading. 

Hum had his different moods, like human beings. On 
cold, cloudy, gray days he appeared to be somewhat de- 
pressed in spirits, hummed less about the room, and sat 
humped up with his feathers ruffled, looking as much like 
a bird in a great-coat as possible. But on hot, sunny days, 
every feather sleeked itself down, and his little body looked 
natty and trim, his head alert, his eyes bright, and it was' 
impossible to come near him, for his agility. Then let mos- 
quitoes and little flies look about them ! Hum snapped them 
up without mercy, and seemed to be all over the ceiling 
in a moment, and resisted all our efforts at any personal 
familiarity with a saucy alacrity. 

Hum had his established institutions in our room, the 
chief of which was a tumbler with a little sugar and water 
mixed in it, and a spoon laid across, out of which he helped 
himself whenever he felt in the mood, — sitting on the edge 
of the tumbler, and dipping his long bill, and lapping with 
his little forked tongue like a kitten. When he found his 
spoon accidentally dry, he would stoop over and dip his 
bill in the water in the tumbler, — which caused the proph- 
ecy on the part of some of his guardians, that he would 
fail in some day and be drowned. For which reason it was 
agreed to keep only an inch in depth of the fluid at the 



76 



HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 




bottom of the tumbler. A wise precaution this proved ; for 
the next morning I was awaked, not by the usual hum 
over my head, but by a sharp little flutter, and found Mr. 
Hum beating his wings in the tumbler, — having actually 
tumbled in during his energetic efforts to get his morning 
coffee before I was awake. 

Hum seemed perfectly happy and satisfied in his quarters, 
— but one day, when the door was left open, made a dart 
out, and so into the open sunshine. Then, to be sure, we 
thought we had lost him. We took the mosquito netting 



HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 77 

out o( all the windows, and, setting his tumbler of sugar 
and water in a conspicuous place, went about our usual 
occupations. We saw him joyous and brisk among the 
honeysuckles outside the window, and it was gravely pre- 
dicted that he would return no more. But at dinner-time 
in came Hum, familiar as possible, and sat down to his 
spoon as if nothing had happened ; instantly we closed our 
windows and had him secure once more. 

At another time I was going to ride to the Atlantic 
House, about a mile from my boarding-place. I left all 
secure, as I supposed, at home. While gathering moss on 
the walls there, I was surprised by a little green humming- 
bird flying familiarly right towards my face, and humming 
above my head. I called out, " Here is Hum's very brother." 
But, on returning home, I saw that the door of the room 
was open, and Hum was gone. Now certainly we gave 
him up for lost. I sat down to painting, and in a few 
minutes in flew Hum, and settled on the edge of my tum- 
oler in a social, confidential way, which seemed to say, " O, 
you 've got back then." After taking his usual drink of 
sugar and water, he began to fly about the ceiling as usual, 
and we gladly shut him in. 

When our five weeks at the seaside were up, and it was 
time to go home, we had great questionings what was to 
be done with Hum. To get him home with us was our 
desire, — but who ever heard of a humming-bird travelling 



?8 HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 

by railroad ? Great were the consultings ; a little basket 
of Indian work was filled up with cambric handkerchiefs, 
and a bottle of sugar and water provided, and we started 
with him for a day's journey. When we arrived at night 
the first care was to see what had become of Hum, who 
had not been looked at since we fed him with sugar and 
water in Boston. We found him alive and well, but so 
dead asleep that we could not wake him to roost ; so we 
put him to bed on a toilet cushion, and arranged his tum- 
bler for morning. The next day found him alive and hum- 
ming, exploring the room and pictures, perching now here 
and now there ; but, as the weather was chilly, he sat for 
the most part of the time in a humped-up state on the tip 
of a pair of stag's horns. We moved him to a more sunny 
apartment ; but, alas ! the equinoctial storm came on, and 
there was no sun to be had for days. Hum was blue ; 
the pleasant seaside days were over ; his room was lonely, 
the pleasant three that had enlivened the apartment at Rye 
no longer came in and out ; evidently he was lonesome, 
and gave way to depression. One chilly morning he man- 
aged again to fall into his tumbler, and wet himself through ; 
and notwithstanding warm bathings and tender nursings, 
the poor little fellow seemed to get diphtheria, or something 
quite as bad for humming-birds. 

We carried him to a neighboring sunny parlor, where ivy 
embowers all the walls, and the sun lies all day. There he 



HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 79 

revived a little, danced up and down, perched on a green 
spray that was wreathed across the breast of a Psyche, and 
looked then like a little flitting soul returning to its rest 
Towards evening he drooped ; and, having been nursed and 
warmed and cared for, he was put to sleep on a green 
twig laid on the piano. In that sleep the little head drooped 
— nodded — fell; and little Hum went where other bright 
dreams go, — to the Land of the Hereafter. 



OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. 

\ li 7"E have just built our house in rather an out-of-the- 
* way place, — on the bank of a river, and under the 
shade of a patch of woods which is a veritable remain of 
quite an ancient forest. The checkerberry and partridge- 
plum, with their glossy green leaves and scarlet berries, 
still carpet the ground under its deep shadows ; and prince's- 
pine and other kindred evergreens declare its native wild- 
ness, — for these are children of the wild woods, that 
never come after plough and harrow has once broken a 
soil. 

When we tried to look out the spot for our house, we 
had to get a surveyor to go before us and cut a path 
through the dense underbrush that was laced together in a 
general network of boughs and leaves, and grew so high 
as to overtop our heads. Where the house stands, four or 
five great old oaks and chestnuts had to be cut away to 
let it in ; and now it stands on the bank of the river, the 
edges of which are still overhung with old forest-trees, 
chestnuts and oaks, which look at themselves in the glassy 
stream. 

A little knoll near the house was chosen for a garden* 
spot ; a dense, dark mass of trees above, of bushes in mid 



OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. 8 1 

air, and of all sorts of ferns and wild-flowers and creeping 
vines on the ground. All these had to be cleared out, 
and a dozen great trees cut down and dragged off to a 
neighboring saw-mill, there to be transformed into boards 
to finish off our house. Then, fetching a great machine, 
such as might be used to pull a giant's teeth, with ropes, 
pulleys, oxen, and men, and might and main, we pulled out 
the stumps, with their great prongs and their network of 
roots and fibres ; and then, alas ! we had to begin with all 
the pretty wild, lovely bushes, and the checkerberries and 
ferns and wild blackberries and huckleberry-bushes, and dig 
them up remorselessly, that we might plant our corn and 
squashes. And so we got a house and a garden right out 
of the heart of our piece of wild wood, about a mile from 
the city of H . 

Well, then, people said it was a lonely place, and far 
from neighbors, — by which they meant that it was a good 
way for them to come to see us. But we soon found that 
whoever goes into the woods to live finds neighbors of a 
new kind, and some to whom it is rather hard to become 
accustomed. 

For instance, on a fine day early in April, as we were 
crossing over to superintend the building of our house, we 
were startled by a striped snake, with his little bright eyes, 
raising himself to look at us, and putting out his red, 
forked tongue. Now there is no more harm in these little 
6 



32 OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. 

garden-snakes than there is in a robin or a squirrel ; they 
are poor little, peaceable, timid creatures, which could not 
do any harm if they would ; but the prejudices of society 
are so strong against them, that one does not like to cul- 
tivate too much intimacy with them. So we tried to turn 
out of our path into a tangle of bushes ; and there, 
instead of one, we found four snakes. We turned on the 
other side, and there were two more. In short, every- 
where we looked, the dry leaves were rustling and coiling 
with them ; and we were in despair. In vain we said that 
they were harmless as kittens, and tried to persuade our- 
selves that their little bright eyes were pretty, and that 
their serpentine movements were in the exact line of beauty ; 
for the life of us, we could not help remembering their 
family name and connections ; we thought of those disa- 
greeable gentlemen, the anacondas, the rattlesnakes, and the 
copperheads, and all of that bad line, immediate family 
friends of the old serpent to whom we are indebted for all 
the mischief that is done in this world. So we were quite 
apprehensive when we saw how our new neighborhood was 
infested by them, until a neighbor calmed out fears by 
telling us that snakes always crawled out of their holes to 
sun themselves in the spring, and that in a day or two 
they would all be gone. 

So it proved. It was evident they were all out merely 
to do their spring shopping, or something that serves with 



OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. 83 

them the same purpose that spring shopping does with as ; 
and where they went afterwards we do not know. People 
speak of snakes' holes, and we have seen them disappear- 
ing into such subterranean chambers ; but we never opened 
one to see what sort of underground housekeeping went 
on there. After the first few days of spring, a snake was 
a rare visitor, though now and then one appeared. 

One was discovered taking his noontide repast one day 
in a manner which excited much • prejudice. He was, in 
fact, regaling himself by sucking down into his maw a 
small frog, which he had begun to swallow at the toes, 
and had drawn about half down. The frog, it must be 
confessed, seemed to view this arrangement with great indif- 
ference, making no struggle, and sitting solemnly, with his 
great unwinking eyes, to be sucked in at the leisure of his 
captor. There was immense sympathy, however, excited 
for him in the family circle ; and it was voted that a snake 
which indulged in such very disagreeable modes of eating 
his dinner was not to be tolerated in our vicinity. So 
I have reason to believe that that was his last meal. 

Another of our wild woodland neighbors made us some 
trouble. It was no other than a veritable woodchuck, 
those hole we had often wondered at when we were 
iv rambling through the underbrush after spring flowers. 
The hole was about the size of a peck-measure, and had 
two openings about six feet apart. The occupant was a 



84 OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. 

gentleman we never had had the pleasure of seeing; but 
we soon learned his existence from his ravages in our gar- 
den. He had a taste, it appears, for the very kind of 
things we wanted to eat ourselves, and helped himself 
without asking. We had a row of fine, crisp heads of let- 
tuce, which were the pride of our gardening, and out of 
which he would from day to day select for his table just 
the plants we had marked for ours. He also nibbled our 
young beans ; and so at last we were reluctantly obliged 
to let John Gardiner set a trap for him. Poor old simple- 
minded hermit, he was too artless for this world! He was 
caught at the very first snap, and found dead in the trap, 
— the agitation and distress having broken his poor wood- 
land heart, and killed him. We were grieved to the very 
soul when the poor fat old fellow was dragged out, with 
his useless paws standing up stiff and imploring. As it 
was, he was given to Denis, our pig, which, without a 
single scruple of delicacy, ate him up as thoroughly as 
he ate up the lettuce. 

This business of eating, it appears, must go on all through 
creation. We eat ducks, turkeys, and chickens, though we 
don't swallow them whole, feathers and all. Our four-footed 
friends, less civilized, take things with more directness and 
simplicity, and chew each other up without ceremony, or 
swallow each other alive. Of these unceremonious habit 
we had other instances. 



OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. 8<J 

Our house had a central court on the southern side, into 
which looked the library, dining-room, and front hall, as 
well as several of the upper chambers. It was designed to 
be closed in with glass, to serve as a conservatory in win- 
ter ; and meanwhile we had filled it with splendid plumy 
ferns, taken up out of the neighboring wood. In the centre 
was a fountain surrounded by stones, shells, mosses, and 
various water-plants. We had bought three little goldfish 
to swim in our basin ; and the spray of it, as it rose in 
the air and rippled back into the water, was the pleasantest 
possible sound of a hot day. We used to lie on the sofa 
in the hall, and look into the court, and fancy we saw 
some scene of fairy-land, and water-sprites coming up from 
the fountain. Suddenly a new-comer presented himself,— 
no other than an immense bullfrog, that had hopped up 
from the neighboring river, apparently with a view to mak- 
ing a permanent settlement in and about our fountain. 
He was to be seen, often for hours, sitting reflectively on 
the edge of it, beneath the broad shadow of the calla-leaves. 
When sometimes missed thence, he would be found under 
ths ample shield of a great bignonia, whose striped leaves 
' grew hard by. 

The family were prejudiced against him. What did he 
want there ? It was surely some sinister motive impelled 
him. He was probably watching for an opportunity to 
gobble up. the goldfish. We took his part, however, and 



86 



OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. 




strenuously defended his moral character, and patronized 
him in all ways. We gave him the name of Unke, and 
maintained that he was a well-conducted, philosophical old 
water-sprite, who showed his good taste in wanting to take 
up his abode in our conservatory. We even defended his 
personal appearance, praised the invisible-green coat which 
he wore on his back, and his gray vest, and solemn gold 



OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. 87 

spectacles ; and though he always felt remarkably slimy 
when we touched him, yet, as he would sit still, and allow 
us to stroke his head and pat his back, we concluded his 
social feelings might be warm, notwithstanding a cold ex- 
terior. Who knew, after all, but he might be a beautiful 
young prince, enchanted there till the princess should come 
to drop the golden ball into the fountain, and so give him 
a chance to marry her, and turn into a man again ? Such 
things, we are credibly informed, are matters of frequent 
occurrence in Germany. Why not here ? 

By and by there came to our fountain another visitor, — 
a frisky, green young frog of the identical kind spoken of 
by the poet: — 

" There was a frog lived in a well, 
Rig dum pully metakimo." 

This thoughtless, dapper individual, with his bright green 
coat, his faultless white vest, and sea-green tights, became 
rather the popular favorite. He seemed just rakish and 
gallant enough to fulfil the conditions of the song : — 

" The frog he would a courting ride, 
With sword and pistol by his side." 

This lively young fellow, whom we shall Cri-Cri, like other 
risky and gay young people, carried the day quite over 
the head of the solemn old philosopher under the calla- 
leaves. At night, when all was still, he would trill a joy- 



88 OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. 

ous little note in his throat, while old Unke would answei 
only with a cracked gutteral more singular than agreeable; 
and to all outward appearance the two were as good 
friends as their different natures would allow. 

One day, however, the conservatory became a scene of a 
tragedy of the deepest dye. We were summoned below by 
shrieks and howls of horror. "Do pray come down and 
see what this vile, nasty, horrid old frog has been doing!" 
Down we came ; and there sat our virtuous old philosopher, 
with his poor little brother's hind legs still sticking out of 
the corner of his mouth, as if he were smoking them for 
a cigar, all helplessly palpitating as they were. In fact, 
our solemn old friend had done what many a solemn hyp- 
ocrite before has done, — swallowed his poor brother, neck 
and crop, — and sat there with the most brazen indifference, 
looking as if he had done the most proper and virtuous 
thing in the world. 

Immediately he was marched out of the conservatory at 
the point of the walking-stick, and made to hop down into 
the river, into whose waters he splashed ; and we saw him 
no more. We regret to say that the popular indignation 
was so precipitate in its results ; otherwise the special artist 
who sketched Hum, the son of Buz, intended to have made 
a sketch of the old villain, as he sat with his luckless vic- 
tim's hind legs projecting from his solemn mouth. With 
all his moral faults, he was a good sitter, and would prob- 



OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. 89 

ably have sat immovable any length of time that could be 
desired. 

Of other woodland neighbors there were some which we 
saw occasionally. The shores of the river were lined here 
and there with the holes of the muskrats ; and, in rowing 
by their settlements, we were sometimes strongly reminded 
of them by the overpowering odor of the perfume from 
which they get their name. There were also owls, whose 
nests were high up in some of the old chestnut-trees. Often 
in the lonely hours of the night we could hear them gib- 
bering with a sort of wild, hollow laugh among the distant 
trees. But one tenant of the woods made us some trouble 
in the autumn. It was a little flying-squirrel, who took to 
making excursions into our house in the night season, com- 
ing down chimney into the chambers, rustling about among 
the clothes, cracking nuts or nibbling at any morsels of 
anything that suited his fancy. For a long time the in- 
mates of the rooms were awakened in the night by myste- 
rious noises, thumps, and rappings, and so lighted candles, 
and searched in vain to find whence they came ; for the 
moment any movement was made, the rogue whipped up 
chimney, and left us a prey to the most mysterious alarms. 
What could it be? 

But one night our fine gentleman bounced in at the 
window of another room, which had no fireplace ; and the 
fair occupant, rising in the night, shut the window, with- 



90 OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. 

out suspecting that she had cut off the retreat of any of 
her woodland neighbors. The next morning she was star- 
tled by what she thought a gray rat running past her 
bed. She rose to pursue him, when he ran up the wall, 
and clung against the plastering, showing himself very 
plainly a gray flying-squirrel, with large, soft eyes, and 
wings which consisted of a membrane uniting the fore 
paws to the hind ones, like those of a bat. He was 
chased into the conservatory, and, a window being opened, 
out he flew upon the ground, and made away for his na- 
tive woods, and thus put an end to many fears as to the 
nature of our nocturnal rappings. 

So you see how many neighbors we found by living in 
the woods, and, after all, no worse ones than are found 
in the great world. 



OUR DOGS. 
I. 

\I7E who live in Cunopolis are a dog-loving family. 
* * We have a warm side towards everything that goes 
upon four paws, and the consequence has been that, taking 
things first and last, we have been always kept in confu- 
sion and under the paw, so to speak, of some honest four- 
footed tyrant, who would go beyond his privilege and 
overrun the whole house. Years ago this begun, when 
our household consisted of a papa, a mamma, and three 
or four noisy boys and girls, and a kind Miss Anna who 
acted as a second mamma to the whole. There was also 
one more of our number, the youngest, dear little bright- 
eyed Charley, who was king over us all, and rode in a 
wicker wagon for a chariot, and had a nice little nurse 
devoted to him ; and it was through him that our first 
dog came. 

One day Charley's nurse took him quite a way to a 
neighbor's house to spend the afternoon ; and, he being 
well amused, they stayed till after nightfall. The kind old 
lady of the mansion was concerned that the little prince in 
his little coach, with his little maid, had to travel so far in 



0,2 OUR DOGS. 

the twilight shadows, and so she called a big dog named 
Carlo, and gave the establishment into his charge. 

Carlo was a great, tawny-yellow mastiff, as big as a calf, 
with great, clear, honest eyes, and stiff, wiry hair ; and the 
good lady called him to the side of the little wagon, and 
said, " Now, Carlo, you must take good care of Charley, 
and you must n't let anything hurt him." 

Carlo wagged his tail in promise of protection, and away 
he trotted, home with the wicker wagon ; and when he 
arrived, he was received with so much applause by four 
little folks, who dearly loved the very sight of a dog, he 
was so stroked and petted and caressed, that he concluded 
that he liked the place better than the home he came 
from, where were only verv grave elderly people. He tar- 
ried all night, and slept at the foot of the boys' bed, who 
could hardly go to sleep for the things they found to say 
to him, and who were awake ever so early in the morning, 
stroking his rough, tawny back, and hugging him. 

At his own home Carlo had a kennel all to himself, 
where he was expected to live quite alone, and do duty by 
watching and guarding the place. Nobody petted him, or 
stroked his rough hide, or said, "Poor dog!" to him, and 
so it appears he had a feeling that he was not appreciated, 
and liked our warm-hearted little folks, who told him stories, 
gave him half of their own supper, and took him to bed 
with them sociably. Carlo was a dog that had a mind of 



OUR DOGS. 93 

his own, though he could n't say much about it, and in his 
dog fashion proclaimed his likes and dislikes quite as 
strongly as if he could speak. When the time came for 
taking him home, he growled and showed his teeth dan- 
gerously at the man who was sent for him, and it was 
necessary to drag him back by force, and tie him into his 
kennel. However, he soon settled that matter by gnawing 
the rope in two and padding down again and appearing 
among his little friends, quite to their delight. Two or 
three times was he taken back and tied or chained ; but 
he howled so dismally, and snapped at people in such a 
misanthropic manner, that finally the kind old lady thought 
it better to have no dog at all than a dog soured by 
blighted affection. So she loosed his rope, and said, "There, 
Carlo, go and stay where you like " ; and so Carlo came 
to us, and a joy and delight was he to all in the house. 
He loved one and all ; but he declared himself as more 
than all the slave and property of our little Prince Char- 
ley. He would lie on the floor as still as a door-mat, and 
let him pull his hair, and roll over him, and examine his 
eyes with his little fat fingers ; and Carlo submitted to all 
these personal freedoms with as good an understanding as 
papa himself. When Charley slept, Carlo stretched himself 
along under the crib ; rising now and then, and standing 
with his broad breast on a level with the slats of the crib, 
he would look down upon him with an air of grave pro- 



94 



OUR DOGS. 




tection. He also took a great fancy to papa, and would 
sometimes pat with tiptoe care into his study, and sit 
quietly down by him when he was busy over his Greek 
or Latin books, waiting for a word or two of praise or en- 
couragement. If none came, he would lay his rough horny 
paw on his knee, and look in his face with such an hon- 
est, imploring expression, that the professor was forced to 
break off to say, "Why, Carlo, you poor, good, honest 
fellow, — did he want to be talked to? — so he did. Well, 
he shall be talked to ; — he 's a nice, good dog " ; — and 
during all these praises Carlo's transports and the thumps 
of his rough tail are not to be described. 

He had great, honest yellowish-brown eyes, — not remark- 
able for their beauty, but which used to look as if he 
longed to speak, and he seemed to have a yearning foi 



OUR DOGS. 95 

praise and love and caresses that even all our attentions 
could scarcely satisfy. His master would say to him some- 
times, "Carlo, you poor, good, homely dog, — how loving 
you are ! " 

Carlo was a full-blooded mastiff, and his beauty, if he 
had any, consisted in his having all the good points of his 
race. He was a dog of blood, come of real old mastiff 
lineage ; his stiff, wiry hair, his big, rough paws, and great 
brawny chest, were all made for strength rather than beauty ; 
but for all that he was a dog of tender sentiments. Yet, 
if any one intruded on his rights and dignities, Carlo 
showed that he had hot blood in him ; his lips would go 
back, and show a glistening row of ivories, that one would 
not like to encounter, and if any trenched on his privileges, 
he would give a deep warning growl, — as much as to say, 
" I am your slave for love, but you must treat me well, or 
I shall be dangerous." A blow he would not bear from 
any one : the fire would flash from his great yellow eyes, 
and he would snap like a rifle ; — yet he would let his 
own Prince Charley pound on his ribs with both baby 
fists, and pull his tail till he yelped, without even a show 
of resistance. • 

At last came a time when the merry voice of little Char- 
ley was heard no more, and his little feet no more pattered 
through the halls ; he lay pale and silent in his little crib, 
with his dear life ebbing away, and no one knew how to 



i)6 OUR DOGS. 

stop its going. Poor old Carlo lay under the crib when 
they would let him, sometimes rising up to look in with 
an earnest, sorrowful face ; and sometimes he would stretch 
himself out in the entry before the door of little Charley's 
room, watching with his great open eyes lest the thief 
should come in the night to steal away our treasure. 

But one morning when the children woke, one little soul 
had gone in the night, — gone upward to the angels ; and 
then the cold, pale little form that used to be the life of 
the house was laid away tenderly in the yard of a neigh- 
boring church. 

Poor old Carlo would pit-pat silently about the house in 
those days of grief, looking first into one face and then 
another, but no one could tell him where his gay little 
master had gone. The other children had hid the baby- 
wagon away in the lumber-room lest their mamma should 
see it ; and so passed a week or two, and Carlo saw no 
trace of Charley about the house. But then a lady in the 
neighborhood, who had a sick baby, sent to borrow the 
wicker wagon, and it was taken from its hiding-place to 
go to her. Carlo came to the door just as it was being 
drawn out of the gate into the street. Immediately he 
sprung, cleared the fence with a great bound, and ran after 
it. He overtook it, and poked his nose between the cur- 
tains, — there was no one there. Immediately he turned 
away, and padded dejectedly home. What words coul 



OUR DOGS. 97 

have spoken plainer of love and memory than this one 
action ? 

Carlo lived with us a year after this, when a time came 
for the whole family hive to be taken up and moved away 
from the flowery banks of the Ohio, to the piny shores of 
Maine. All our household goods were being uprooted, dis- 
ordered, packed, and sold ; and the question daily arose, 
" What shall we do with Carlo ? " There was hard begging 
on the part of the boys that he might go with them, and 
one even volunteered to travel all the way in baggage cars 
to keep Carlo company. But papa said no, and so it was 
decided to send Carlo up the river to the home of a very 
genial lady who had visited in our family, and who appre- 
ciated his parts, and offered him a home in hers. 

The matter was anxiously talked over one day in the 
family circle while Carlo lay under the table, and it was 
agreed that papa and Willie should take him to the steam- 
boat landing the next morning. But the next morning Mr. 
Carlo was nowhere to be found. In vain was he called, 
from garret to cellar ; nor was it till papa and Willie had 
gone to the city that he came out of his hiding-place. 
For two or three days it was impossible to catch him, but 
after a while his suspicions were laid, and we learned not 
to speak out our plans in his presence, and so the transfer 
at last was prosperously effected. 

We heard from him once in his new home, as being a 
7 



$% OUR DOGS. 

highly appreciated member of society, and adorning his new 
situation with all sorts of dog virtues, while we wended our 
ways to the coast of Maine. But our hearts were sore for 
want of him ; the family circle seemed incomplete, until a 
new favorite appeared to take his place, of which I shall 
tell you next month. 



II. 



A NEIGHBOR, blessed with an extensive litter of New- 
■* *- foundland pups, commenced one chapter in our family 
history by giving us a puppy, brisk, funny, and lively 
enough, who was received in our house with acclamations 
of joy, and christened "Rover." An auspicious name we 
all thought, for his four or five human playfellows were 
all rovers, — rovers in the woods, rovers by the banks of 
a neighboring patch of water, where they dashed and 
splashed, made rafts, inaugurated boats, and lived among 
the cat-tails and sweet flags as familiarly as so many musk- 
rats. Rovers also they were, every few days, down to 
the shores of the great sea, where they caught fish, rowed 
boats, dug clams, — both girls and boys, — and one sex 
quite as handily as the other. Rover came into such a 
lively circle quite as one of them, and from the very first 
seemed to regard himselt as part and parcel of all tha; 



OUR DOGS. 99 

was going on, in doors or out. But his exuberant spirits 
at times brought him into sad scrapes. His vivacity was 
such as to amount to decided insanity, — and mamma and 
Miss Anna and papa had many grave looks over his capers. 
Once he actually tore off the leg of a new pair of trousers 
that Johnny had just donned, and came racing home 
with it in his mouth, with its bare-legged little owner 
behind, screaming threats and maledictions on the robber. 
What a commotion ! The new trousers had just been pain- 
fully finished, in those days when sewing was sewing, and 
not a mere jig on a sewing-machine ; but Rover, so far 
from being abashed or ashamed, displayed an impish glee 
in his performance, bounding and leaping hither and thither 
with his trophy in his mouth, now growling and mangling 
it, and shaking it at us in elfish triumph as we chased him 
hither and thither, — over the wood-pile, into the wood- 
house, through the barn, out of the stable door, — vowing 
all sorts of dreadful punishments when we caught him. But 
we might well say that, for the little wretch would never 
be caught ; after one of his tricks, he always managed 
to keep himself out of arm's length till the thing was a 
little blown over, when in he would come, airy as ever, 
and wagging his little pudgy puppy tail with an air of the 
most perfect assurance in the world. 

There is no saying what youthful errors were pardoned 
£ him. Once he ate a hole in the bed-quilt as his night's 



100 OUR DOGS. 

employment, when one of the boys had surreptitiously got 
him into bed with them ; he nibbled and variously mal- 
treated sundry sheets ; and once actually tore up and 
chewed off a coiner of the bedroom carpet, to stay his 
stomach during the night season. What he did it for, no 
mortal knows ; certainly it could not be because he was 
hungry, for there were five little pairs of hands incessantly 
feeding him from morning till night. Beside which, he 
had a boundless appetite for shoes, which he mumbled, and 
shook, and tore, and ruined, greatly to the vexation of 
their rightful owners, — rushing in and carrying them from 
the bedsides in the night-watches, racing off with them 
to any out-of-the-way corner that hit his fancy, and leav- 
ing them when he was tired of the fun. So there is no 
telling of the disgrace into which he brought his little 
masters and mistresses, and the tears and threats and 
scoldings which were all wasted on him, as he would 
stand quite at his ease, lolling out his red, saucy tongue, 
and never deigning to tell what he had done with his 
spoils. 

Notwithstanding all these sins, Rover grew up to dog- 
hood, the pride and pet of the family, — and in truth a 
very handsome dog he was. 

It is quite evident from his looks that his Newfoundland 
Dlood had been mingled with that of some other races ■ 
for he never attained the full size of that race, and hii 



OUR DOGS 



IOI 




points in some respects resembled those of a good setter. 
He was grizzled black and white, and spotted on the sides 
in litle inky drops about the size of a three-cent piece ; 
his hair was long and silky, his ears beautifully fringed, 
and his tail long and feathery. His eyes were bright, soft, 
and full of expression, and a jollier, livelier, more loving 
creature never wore dog-skin. To be sure, his hunting 
blood sometimes brought us and him into scrapes. A 
neighbor now and then would call with a bill for ducks, 
chickens, or young turkeys, which Rover had killed. The 
last time this occurred it was decided that something must 
be done ; so Rover was shut up a whole day in a cold 
lumber-room, with the murdered duck tied round his neck. 
Poor fellow ! how dejected and ashamed he looked, and 



102 OUR DOGS. 

how grateful he was when his little friends would steal in 
to sit with him, and "poor" him in his disgrace ! The pun- 
ishment so improved his principles that he let poultry alone 
from that time, except now and then, when he would 
snap up a young chick or turkey, in pure absence of mind, 
before he really knew what he was about. We had great 
dread lest he should take to killing sheep, of which there 
were many flocks in the neighborhood. A dog which 
once kills sheep is a doomed beast, — as much as a man 
who has committed murder ; and if our Rover, through 
the hunting blood that was in him, should once mistake 
a sheep for a deer, and kill him, we should be obliged to 
give him up to justice, — all his good looks and good 
qualities could not save him. 

What anxieties his training under this head cost us ! 
When we were driving out along the clean sandy roads, 
among the piny groves of Maine, it was half our enjoyment 
to see Rover, with ears and tail wild and flying with excite- 
ment and enjoyment, bounding and barking, now on this side 
the carriage, now on that, — now darting through the woods 
straight as an arrow, in his leaps after birds or squirrels, 
and anon returning to trot obediently by the carriage, and, 
wagging his tail, to ask applause for his performances. 
But anon a flock of sheep appeared in a distant field, and 
away would go Rover in full bow-wow, plunging in among 
them, scattering them hither and thither in dire confusion 



OUR DOGS. IC3 

Then Johnny and Bill and all hands would spring from the 
carriage in full chase of the rogue ; and all of us shouted 
vainly in the rear ; and finally the rascal would be dragged 
back, panting and crestfallen, to be admonished, scolded, 
and cuffed with salutary discipline, heartily administered by 
his best friends for the sake of saving his life. " Rover, 
you naughty dog ! Don't you know you must n't chase the 
sheep ? You '11 be killed, some of these days." Admoni- 
tions of this kind, well shaken and thumped in, at last 
seemed to reform him thoroughly. He grew so conscien- 
tious, that, when a flock of sheep appeared on the side of 
the road, he would immediately go to the other side of the 
carriage, and turn away his head, rolling up his eyes 
meanwhile to us for praise at his extraordinary good con- 
duct. " Good dog, Rove ! nice dog ! good fellow ! he does n't 
touch the sheep, — no, he doesn't." Such were the rewards 
of virtue which sweetened his self-denial ; hearing which, 
he would plume up his feathery tail, and loll out his 
tongue, with an air of virtuous assurance quite edifying to 
behold. 

Another of Rover's dangers was a habit he had of run- 
ning races and cutting capers with the railroad engines as 
they passed near our dwelling. 

We lived in plain sight of the track, and three or four 
times a day the old, puffing, smoky iron horse thundered 
oy, dragging his trains of cars, and making the very ground 



104 0UR DOGS. 

shake under him. Rover never could resist the temptation 
to run and bark, and race with so lively an antagonist ; 
and, to say the truth, John and Willy were somewhat of 
his mind, — so that, though they were directed to catch 
and hinder him, they entered so warmly into his own feel- 
ings that they never succeeded in breaking up the habit. 
Every day when the distant whistle was heard, away would 
go Rover, out of the door or through the window, — no 
matter which, — race down to meet the cars, couch down 
on the -track in front of them, barking with all his might, 
as if it were only a fellow-dog, and when they came so 
near that escape seemed utterly impossible, he would lie 
flat down between the rails and suffer the whole train to 
pass over him, and then jump up and bark, full of glee, in 
the rear. Sometimes he varied this performance more dan- 
gerously by jumping out full tilt between two middle cars 
when the train had passed half-way over him. Everybody 
predicted, of course, that he would be killed or maimed, and 
the loss of a paw, or of his fine, saucy tail, was the least 
of the dreadful things which were prophesied about him. 
But Rover lived and throve in his imprudent courses not- 
withstanding. 

The engineers and firemen, who began by throwing sticks 
of wood and bits of coal at him, at last were quite sub- 
dued by his successful impudence, and came to consider 
him as a regular institution of the railroad, and, if anj 



OUR DOGS. I05 

family excursion took him off for a day, they would inquire 
with interest, "Where 's our dog? — what 's become of 
Rover?" As to the female part of our family, we had 
so often anticipated piteous scenes when poor Rover would 
be brought home with broken paws or without his pretty 
tail, that we quite used up our sensibilities, and concluded 
that some kind angel, such as is appointed to watch over 
little children's pets, must take special care of our Rover. 

Rover had very tender domestic affections. His attach- 
ment to his little playfellows was most intense ; and one 
time, when all of them were taken off together on a week's 
excursion, and Rover left alone at home, his low spirits 
were really pitiful. He refused entirely to eat for the 
first day, and finally could only be coaxed to take nour- 
ishment, with many strokings and caresses, by being fed 
out of Miss Anna's own hand. What perfectly boisterous 
joy he showed when the children came back ! — careering 
round and round, picking up chips and bits of sticks, and 
coming and offering them to one and another, in the ful- 
ness of his doggish heart, to show how much he wanted 
to give them something. 

This mode of signifying his love by bringing something 
in his mouth was one of his most characteristic tricks. 
At one time he followed the carriage from Brunswick to 
Bath, and in the streets of the city somehow lost his 
way, so that he was gone all night Many a little heart 



[06 OUR DOGS. 

went to bed anxious and sorrowful for the loss of its 
shaggy playfellow that night, and Rover doubtless was 
remembered in many little prayers ; what, therefore, was 
the joy of being awakened by a joyful barking under the 
window the next morning, when his little friends rushed 
in their nightgowns to behold Rover back again, fresh 
and frisky, bearing in his mouth a branch of a tree about 
six feet long, as his offering of joy. 

When the family removed to Zion Hill, Rover went 
with them, the trusty and established family friend. Age 
had somewhat matured his early friskiness. Perhaps the 
grave neighborhood of a theological seminary and the re- 
sponsibility of being a Professor's dog might have something 
to do with it, but Rover gained an established character as 
a dog of respectable habits, and used to march to the post- 
Dflice at the heels of his master twice a day, as regularly 
as any theological student. 

Little Charley the second — the youngest of the brood, 
who took the place of our lost little Prince Charley — was 
yet padding about in short robes, and seemed to regard 
Rover in the light of a discreet older brother, and Rover's 
manners to him were of most protecting gentleness. Char- 
\ey seemed to consider Rover in all things as such a 
model, that he overlooked the difference between a dog and 
a boy, and wearied himself with fruitless attempts to scratch 
ais ear with his foot as Rover did, and one day was brought 



OUR DOGS. I07 

in dripping from a neighboring swamp, where he had been 
lying down in the water, because Rover did. 

Once in a while a wild oat or two from Rover's old sack 
would seem to entangle him. Sometimes, when we were 
driving out, he would, in his races after the carriage, make 
a flying leap into a farmer's yard, and, if he lighted in a 
flock of chickens or turkeys, gobble one off-hand, and be 
off again and a mile ahead before the mother hen had 
recovered from her astonishment. Sometimes, too, he would 
have a race with the steam-engine just for old acquaintance' 
sake. But these were comparatively transient follies ; in 
general, no members of the grave institutions around him 
behaved with more dignity and decorum than Rover. He 
tried to listen to his master's theological lectures, and to 
attend chapel on Sundays ; but the prejudices of society 
were against him, and so he meekly submitted to be shut 
out, and waited outside the door on these occasions. 

He formed a part of every domestic scene. At family 
prayers, stretched out beside his master, he looked up re- 
flectively with his great soft eyes, and seemed to join in 
the serious feeling of the hour. When all were gay, when 
singing, or frolicking, or games were going on, Rover 
barked and frisked in higher glee than any. At night it 
was his joy to stretch his furry length by our bedside 
where he slept with one ear on cock for any noise which 
it might be his business to watch and attend to. It was 2 



io8 OUR DOGS. 

comfort to hear the tinkle of his collar when he moved in 
the night, or to be wakened by his cold nose pushed against 
one's hand if one slept late in the morning. And then he 
was always so glad when we woke ; and when any member 
of the family circle was gone for a few days, Rover's warm 
delight and welcome were not the least of the pleasures of 
return. 

And what became of him ? Alas ! the fashion came up 
of poisoning dogs, and this poor, good, fond, faithful crea- 
ture was enticed into swallowing poisoned meat. One day 
he came in suddenly, ill and frightened, and ran to the 
friends who always had protected him, — but in vain. In 
a few moments he was in convulsions, and all the tears 
and sobs of his playfellows could not help him ; he closed 
his bright, loving eyes, and died in their arms. 

If those who throw poison to dogs could only see the 
real grief it brings into a family to lose the friend and play- 
fellow who has grown up with the children, and shared 
their plays, and been for years in every family scene, — if 
they could know how sorrowful it is to see the poor dumb 
friend suffer agonies which they cannot relieve. — if they 
could see all this, we have faith to believe they never 
would do so more. 

Our poor Rover was buried with decent care near the 
house, and a mound of petunias over him kept his memory 
ever bright; but it will be long before his friends wil 
get another as true. 



OUR DOGS. IO9 



III. 



AFTER the sad fate of Rover, there came a long in- 
terval in which we had no dog. Our hearts were too 
sore to want another. His collar, tied with black crape, 
hung under a pretty engraving of Landseer's, called " My 
Dog," which we used to fancy to be an exact resemblance 
of our pet. 

The children were some of them grown up and gone to 
school, or scattered about the world. If ever the question 
of another dog was agitated, papa cut it short with, "I 
won't have another ; I won't be made to feel again as I 
did about Rover." But somehow Mr. Charley the younger 
got his eye on a promising litter of puppies, and at last 
he begged papa into consenting that he might have one 
of them. 

It was a little black mongrel, of no particular race or 
ureed, — a mere common cur, without any pretensions to 
family, but the best-natured, j oiliest little low-bred pup that 
ever boy had for a playmate. To be sure, he had the 
usual puppy sins ; he would run away with papa's slippers, 
and boots, and stockings ; ne would be under everybody's 
feet, at the most inconvenient moment ; he chewed up a 
hearth-broom or two, and pulled one of Charley's caps to 
pieces in the night, with an industry worthy of a better 



IIO OUR DOGS. 

cause ; — still, because he was dear to Charley, papa and 
mamma winked very hard at his transgressions. 

The name of this little black individual was Stromion, 
— a name taken from a German fairy tale, which the Pro- 
fessor was very fond of reading in the domestic circle ; and 
Stromion, by dint of much patience, much feeding, and very 
indulgent treatment, grew up into a very fat, common-look- 
ing black cur dog, not very prepossessing in appearance 
and manners, but possessed of the very best heart in the 
world, and most inconceivably affectionate and good-natured. 
Sometimes some of the older members of the family would 
trouble Charley's enjoyment in his playfellow by suggesting 
that he was no blood dog, and that he belonged to no par- 
ticular dog family that could be named. Papa comforted 
him by the assurance that Stromion did belong to a very 
old and respectable breed, — that he was a mongrel; and 
Charley after that valued him excessively under this head ; 
and if any one tauntingly remarked that Stromion was 
only a cur, he would flame up in his defence, — " He is n't 
a cur, he 's a mongrel," introducing him to strangers with 
the addition to all his other virtues, that he was a "pyre 
mongrel, — papa says so." 

The edict against dogs in the family having once been 
broken down, Master Will proceeded to gratify his own 
impulses, and soon led home to the family circle an enor- 
mous old black Newfoundland, of pure breed, which had 



OUR DOGS. Ill 

been presented him by a man who was leaving the place, 
Prince was in the decline of his days, but a fine, majestic 
old fellow. He had a sagacity and capacity of personal 
affection which were uncommon. Many dogs will change 
from master to master without the least discomposure. A 
good bone will compensate for any loss of the heart, and 
make a new friend seem quite as good as an old one. But 
Prince had his affections quite as distinctly as a human 
being, and we learned this to our sorrow when he had to 
be weaned from his old master under our roof. His howls 
and lamentations were so dismal and protracted, that the 
house could not contain him ; we were obliged to put him 
into an outhouse to compose his mind, and we still have a 
vivid image of him sitting, the picture of despair, over an 
untasted mutton shank, with his nose in the air, and the 
most dismal howls proceeding from his mouth. Time, the 
comforter, however, assuaged his grief, and he came at last 
to transfer all his stores of affection to Will, and to con- 
sider himself once more as a dog with a master. 

Prince used to inhabit his young master's apartment, from 
the window of which he would howl dismally when Will 
left him to go to the academy near by, and yelp trium- 
phant welcomes when he saw him returning. He was really 
and passionately fond oC music, and, though strictly forbid- 
den the parlor, would push and elbow his way there with 
dogged determination when there was playing or singing 



112 OUR DOGS. 

Any one who should have seen Prince's air when he had a 
point to carry, would understand why quiet obstinacy is 
called doggedness. 

The female members of the family, seeing that two dogs 
had gained admission to the circle, had cast their eyes ad- 
miringly on a charming little Italian greyhound, that was 
living in doleful captivity at a dog-fancier's in Boston, and 
resolved to set him free and have him for their own. Ac- 
cordingly they returned one day in triumph, with him in 
their arms, — a fair, delicate creature, white as snow, except 
one mouse-colored ear. He was received with enthusiasm, 
and christened Giglio ; the honors of his first bath and 
toilette were performed by Mademoiselles the young ladies 
on their knees, as if he had been in reality young Prince 
Giglio from fairy-land. 

Of all beautiful shapes in dog form, never was there one 
more perfect than this. His hair shone like spun glass, 
and his skin was as fine and pink as that of a baby ; his 
paws and ears were translucent like fine china, and he had 
great, soft, tremulous dark eyes ; his every movement seemed 
more graceful than the last. Whether running or leaping, 
or sitting in graceful attitudes on the parlor table among 
the ladies' embroidery-frames, with a great rose-colored bow 
under his throat, he was alike a thing of beauty, and his 
beauty alone won all hearts to him. 

When the papa first learned that a third dog had beep 



OUR DOGS 



UJ 




introduced into the household, his patience gave way. The 
thing was getting desperate ; we were being overrun with 
dogs ; our house was no more a house, but a kennel ; it 
ought to be called Cunopolis, — a city of dogs ; he could 
not and would not have it so ; but papa, like most other 
indulgent old gentlemen, was soon reconciled to the chil- 
dren's pets. In fact, Giglio was found cowering under the 
jed-clothes at the Professor's feet not two mornings after 
his arrival, and the good gentleman descended with him in 
his arms to breakfast, talking to him in the most devoted 
manner: — "Poor little Giglio, was he cold last night? and 



FI4 OUR DOGS. 

did he want to get into papa's bed ? he should be brought 
down stairs, that he should " ; — all which, addressed to a 
young rascal whose sinews were all like steel, and who 
could have jumped from the top stair to the bottom like a 
r eather, was sufficiently amusing. 

Giglio's singular beauty and grace were his only merits ; 
he had no love nor power of loving ; he liked to be petted 
and kept warm, but it mattered nothing to him who did it. 
He was as ready to run off with a stranger as with his 
very best friend, — would follow any whistle or any caller, 
— was, in fact, such a gay rover, that we came very near 
losing him many times ; and more than once he was brought 
back from the Boston cars, on board which he had followed 
a stranger. He also had, we grieve to say, very careless 
habits ; and after being washed white as snow, and adorned 
with choice rose-colored ribbons, would be brought back 
soiled and ill-smelling from a neighbor's livery-stable, where 
he had been indulging in low society. For all that, he was 
very lordly and aristocratic in his airs with poor Stromion,' 
who was a dog with a good, loving heart, if he was black 
and homely. Stromion admired Giglio with the most evident 
devotion ; he would always get up to give him the warm 
:orner, and would sit humbly in the distance and gaze on 
aim with most longing admiration, — for all of which my 
fine gentleman rewarded him only with an occasional snar 
t>r a nip, as he went by him. Sometimes Giglio would con 



OUR DOGS. 115 

descend to have a romp with Stromion for the sake of 
passing the time, and then Stromion would be perfectly 
delighted, and frisk and roll his clumsy body over the car- 
pet with his graceful antagonist, all whose motions were a 
study for an artist. When Giglio was tired of play, he 
would give Stromion a nip that would send him yelping 
from the field ; and then he would tick, tick gracefully away 
to some embroidered ottoman forbidden to all but himself, 
where he would sit graceful and classical as some Etruscan 
vase, and look down superior on the humble companion 
who looked up to him with respectful admiration. 

Giglio knew his own good points, and was possessed with 
the very spirit of a coquette. He would sometimes obsti- 
nately refuse the caresses and offered lap of his mistresses, 
and seek to ingratiate himself with some stolid theological 
visitor, for no other earthly purpose that we could see than 
that he was determined to make himself the object of at- 
tention. We have seen him persist in jumping time and 
again on the hard, bony knees of some man who hated 
dogs, and did not mean to notice him, until he won atten- 
tion and caresses, when immediately he would spring down 
and tick away perfectly contented. He assumed lofty, fine- 
gentleman airs with Prince also, for which sometimes he 
got his reward, — for Prince, the old, remembered that he 
was a dog of blood, ana would not take any nonsense from 
Dim. 



Il6 OUR DOGS. 

Like many old dogs, Prince had a very powerful doggy 
smell, which was a great personal objection to him, and 
Giglio was always in a civil way making reflections upon 
this weak point. Prince was fond of indulging himself with 
an afternoon nap on the door-mat, and sometimes when he 
rose from his repose, Giglio would spring gracefully from 
the table where he had been overlooking him, and, picking 
his way daintily to the mat, would snuff at it, with his 
long, thin nose, with an air of extreme disgust. It was 
evidently a dog insult, done according to the politest modes 
of refined society, and said as plain as words could say, — 
"My dear sir, excuse me, but can you tell what makes this 
peculiar smell where you have been lying?" At any rate, 
Prince understood the sarcasm, for a deep angry growl and 
a sharp nip would now and then teach my fine gentleman 
to mind his own business. 

Giglio's lot at last was to travel in foreign lands, for his 
young mistresses, being sent to school in Paris, took him 
with them to finish his education and acquire foreign 
graces. He was smuggled on board the Fulton, and placed 
in an upper berth, well wrapped in a blanket ; and the 
last we saw of him was his long, thin Italian nose, and 
dark, tremulous eyes looking wistfully at us from the folds 
of the flannel in which he shivered. Sensitiveness to cold 
was one of his great peculiarities. In winter he wore little 
blankets, which his fond mistresses made with anxious 



OUR DOGS. 117 

rare, and on which his initials were embroidered with 
their own hands. In the winter weather on Zion Hill he 
was often severely put to it to gratify his love of roving in 
the cold snows ; he would hold up first one leg, and then 
the other, and contrive to get along on three, so as to save 
himself as much as possible ; and more than once he caught 
severe colds, requiring careful nursing and medical treat- 
ment to bring him round again. 

The Fulton sailed early in March. It was chilly, stormy 
weather, so that the passengers all suffered somewhat with 
cold, and Master Giglio was glad to lie rolled in his blank- 
et, looking like a sea-sick gentleman. The captain very 
generously allowed him a free passage, and in pleasant 
weather he used to promenade the deck, where his beauty 
won for him caresses and attentions innumerable. The stew- 
ards and cooks always had choice morsels for him, and fed 
him to such a degree as would have spoiled any other 
dog's figure ; but his could not be spoiled. All the ladies 
vied with each other in seeking his good graces, and after 
dinner he pattered from one to another, to be fed with 
sweet things and confectionery, and hear his own praises, 
like a gay buck of fashion as he was. 

Landed in Paris, he met a warm reception at the Pen- 
sion of Madame B ; but ambition filled his breast. He 

was in the great, gay city of Paris, the place where a 
landsome dog has but to appear to make his fortune, and 



Il8 OUR DOGS. 

so Giglio resolved to seek out for himself a more brilliant 
destiny. 

One day, when he was being led to take the air in the 
court, he slipped his leash, sped through the gate, and 
away down the street like the wind. It was idle to at- 
tempt to follow him ; he was gone like a bird in the air, 
and left the hearts of his young mistresses quite desolate. 

Some months after, as they were one evening eating ices 
in the Champs Elys^es, a splendid carriage drove up, from 
which descended a liveried servant, with a dog in his arms. 
It was Giglio, the faithless Giglio, with his one mouse- 
colored ear, that marked him from all other dogs ! He had 
evidently accomplished his destiny, and become the darling 
of rank and fashion, rode in an elegant carriage, and had 
a servant in livery devoted to him. Of course he did not 
pretend to notice his former friends. The footman, who 
had come out apparently to give him an airing, led him 
up and down close by where they were sitting, and be- 
stowed on him the most devoted attentions. Of course 
there was no use in trying to reclaim him, and so they 
took their last look of the fair inconstant, and left him to 
his brilliant destiny. And thus ends the history of Prince 
Giglio 



OUF DOGS. II9 



IV. 



AFTER Prince Giglio deserted us and proved so faith- 
less, we were for a while determined not to have 
another pet. They were all good for nothing, — all alike 
ungrateful ; we forswore the whole race of dogs. But the 
next winter we went to live in the beautiful city of Flor- 
ence, in Italy, and there, ir spite of all our protestations, 
our hearts were again ensnared. 

You must know that in the neighborhood of Florence 
is a celebrated villa, owned by a Russian nobleman, Prince 
Demidoff, and that among other fine things that are to 
be found there are a very nice breed of King Charles 
spaniels, which are called Demidofifs, after the place. One 
of these, a pretty little creature, was presented to us by a 
kind lady, and our resolution against having any more pets 
all melted away in view of the soft, beseeching eyes, the 
fine, silky ears, the glossy, wavy hair, and bright chest- 
nut paws of the new favorite. She was exactly such a 
pretty creature as one sees painted in some of the splen- 
did old Italian pictures, and which Mr. Ruskin describes as 
belonging to the race of " fringy paws." The little creature 
was warmly received among us ; an ottoman was set apart 
for her to lie on ; and a bright bow of green, red, and 
white ribbon, the Italian colors, was prepared for her neck ; 
and she was christened Florence, after her native city. 



120 



OUR DOGS. 




Florence was a perfect little fine lady, and a perfect 
Italian, — sensitive, intelligent, nervous, passionate, and con- 
stant in her attachments, but with a hundred little whims 
and fancies that required petting and tending hourly. She 
was perfectly miserable if she was not allowed to attend us 
in our daily drives, yet in the carriage she was so excit- 
able and restless, so interested to take part in everything 
she saw and heard in the street, that it was all we could 
do to hold her in and make her behave herself decently. 
She was nothing but a little bundle of nerves, apparently 



OUR DOGS. 121 

all the while in a tremble of excitement about one thing 
or another ; she was so disconsolate if left at home, that 
she went everywhere with us. She visited the picture- 
galleries, the museums, and all the approved sights of Flor- 
ence, and improved her mind as much as many other 
young ladies who do the same. 

Then we removed from Florence to Rome, and poor Flo 
was direfully sea-sick on board the steamboat, in company 
with all her young mistresses, but recovered herself at 
Civita Vecchia, and entered Rome in high feather. There 
she settled herself complacently in our new lodgings, which 
were far more spacious and elegant than those we had left 
in Florence, and began to claim her little rights in all the 
sight-seeing of the Eternal City. 

She went with us to palaces and to ruins, scrambling up 
and down, hither and thither, with the utmost show of in- 
terest. She went up all the stairs to the top of the Capi- 
ol, except the very highest and last, where she put on 
airs, whimpered, and professed such little frights, that he; 
mistress was forced to carry her; but once on top, she 
barked from right to left, — now at the snowy top of old 
Soracte, now at the great, wide, desolate plains of the 
Campagna, and now at the old ruins of the Roman Forum 
down under our feet Upon all she had her own opinion, 
and was not backward to express herself. At other times 
she used to ride with us to a beautiful country villa out- 



122 OUR DOGS. 

. ae of the walls of Rome, called the Pamfili Doria. How 
beautiful and lovely this place was I can scarcely tell my 
little friends. There were long alleys and walks of the 
most beautiful trees ; there were winding paths leading to 
all manner of beautiful grottos, and charming fountains, 
and the wide lawns used to be covered with the most 
lovely flowers. There were anemones that looked like little 
tulips, growing about an inch and a half high, and of all 
colors, — blue, purple, lilac, pink, crimson, and white, — and 
there were great beds of fragrant blue and white violets. 
As to the charming grace and beauty of the fountains^ that 
were to be found here and there all through the grounds, 
I could not describe them to you. They were made of 
marble, carved in all sorts of fanciful devices, and grown 
over with green mosses and maidenhair. 

What spirits little Miss Flo had, when once set down in 
these enchanting fields ! While all her mistresses were 
gathering lapfuls of many-colored anemones, violets, and all 
sorts of beautiful things, Flo would snuff the air, and run 
and race hither and thither, with her silky ears flying and 
her whole little body quivering with excitement. Now she 
would race round the grand basin of a fountain, and bark 
with all her might at the great white swans that were 
swelling and ruffling their silver-white plumage, and took 
her noisy attentions with all possible composure. Then she 
would run off down some long side-alley after a lot of 



OUR DOGS. 123 

rrench soldiers, whose gay red legs and blue coats seemed 
to please her mightily ; and many a fine chase she gave 
her mistresses, who were obliged to run up and down, here, 
there, and everywhere, to find her when they wanted to go 
home again. 

One time my lady's friskiness brought her into quite a 
serious trouble, as you shall hear. We were all going to 
St. Peter's Church, and just as we came to the bridge of 
St. Angelo, that crosses the Tiber, we met quite a con- 
course of carriages. Up jumped my lady Florence, all alive 
and busy, — for she always reckoned everything that was 
going on a part of her business, — and gave such a spring 
that over she went, sheer out of the carriage, into the 
mixed medley of carriages, horses, and people below. We 
were all frightened enough, but not half so frightened as 
she was, as she ran blindly down a street, followed by a 
perfect train of ragged little black-eyed, black-haired boys, 
all shouting and screaming after her. As soon as he could, 
l ir courier got down and ran after her, but he might as 
well have chased a streak of summer lightning. She was 
down the street, round the corner, and lost to view, with 
all the ragamuffin tribe, men, boys, and women, after her; 
and so we thought we had lost her, and came home to our 
lodgings very desolate in heart, when lo ! our old porter 
told us that a little dog that looked like ours had come 
begging and whining at our street door, but before he could 



124 0UR DOGS. 

open it the poor little wanderer had been chased away 
again and gone down the street. After a while some very 
polite French soldiers picked her up in the Piazza di Spagna, 
— a great public square near our dwelling, to get into which 
we were obliged to go down some one or two hundred 
steps. We could fancy our poor Flo, frightened and pant- 
ing, flying like a meteor down these steps, till she was 
brought up by the arms of a soldier below. 

Glad enough were we when the polite soldier brought 
her back to our doors ; — and one must say one good thing 
for French soldiers all the world over, that they are the 
pleasantest-tempered and politest people possible, so very 
tender-hearted towards all sorts of little defenceless pets, so 
that our poor runaway could not have fallen into better 
hands. 

After this, we were careful to hold her more firmly when 
she had her little nervous start* and struggles in riding 
about Rome. 

One day we had been riding outside of the walls of the 
city, and just as we were returning home we saw coming 
towards us quite a number of splendid carriages with 
prancing black horses. It was the Pope and several of 
his cardinals coming out for an afternoon airing. The car- 
riages stopped, and the Pope and cardinals all got out to 
take a little exercise on foot, and immediately all carriages 
that were in the way drew to one side, and those of the 



OUR DOGS. 125 

people in them who were Roman Catholics got out and 
knelt down to wait for the Pope's blessing as he went by. 
As for us, we were contented to wait sitting in the carriage. 

On came the Pope, looking like a fat, mild, kind-hearted 
old gentleman, smiling and blessing the people as he went 
on, and the cardinals scuffing along in the dust behind 
him. He walked very near to our carriage, and Miss 
Florence, notwithstanding all our attempts to. keep her 
decent, would give a smart little bow-wow right in his face 
just as he was passing. He smiled benignly, and put out 
his hand in sign of blessing toward our carriage, and 
Florence doubtless got what she had been asking for. 

From Rome we travelled to Naples, and Miss Flo went 
with us through our various adventures there, — up Mount 
Vesuvius, where she half choked herself with sulphurous 
smoke. There is a place near Naples called the Solfatara, 
which is thought to be the crater of the extinct volcano, 
where there is a cave that hisses, and roars, and puffs out 
scalding steam like a perpetual locomotive, and all the 
ground around shakes and quivers as if it were only a 
crust over some terrible abyss. The pools of water are all 
white with sulphur ; the ground is made of sulphur and 
arsenic and all such sort of uncanny matters ; and we 
were in a fine fright lest Miss Florence, being in one of 
her wildest and most indiscreet moods, should tumble into 
some burning hole, or strangle herself with sulphur; and 



126 OUR DOGS. 

in fact she rolled over and over in a sulphur puddle, and 
then, scampering off, rolled in ashes by way of cleaning 
herself. We could not, however, leave her at home during 
any of our excursions, and so had to make the best of 
these imprudences. 

When at last the time came for us to leave Italy, we 
were warned that Florence would not be allowed to travel 
in the railroad cars in the French territories. All dogs, of 
all sizes and kinds, whose owners wish to have travel with 
them, are shut up in a sort of closet by themselves, called 
the dog-car ; and we thought our nervous, excitable little 
pet would be frightened into fits, to be separated from 
all her friends, and made to travel with all sorts of strange 
dogs. So we determined to smuggle her along in a bas- 
ket. At Turin we bought a little black basket, just big 
enough to contain her, and into it we made her go, — 
very sorely against her will, as we could not explain to 
her the reason why. Very guilty indeed we felt, with this 
travelling conveyance hung on one arm, sitting in the 
waiting-room, and dreading every minute lest somebody 
should see the great bright eyes peeping through the holes 
of the basket, or hear the subdued little whines and howls 
which every now and then came from its depths. 

Florence had been a petted lady, used to having her own 
;vay, and a great deal of it ; and this being put up in i 
little black basket, where she could neither make her r© 



OUR DOGS. 127 

marks on the scenery, nor join in the conversation of hex 
young mistresses, seemed to her a piece of caprice without 
rhyme or reason. So every once in a while she would ex- 
press her mind on the subject by a sudden dismal little 
whine ; and what was specially trying, she would take the 
occasion to do this when the cars stopped and all was 
quiet, so that everybody could hear her. Where 's that 
dog ? — somebody 's got a dog in here, — was the inquiry 
very plain to be seen in the suspicious looks which the 
guard cast upon us as he put his head into our compart- 
ment, and gazed about inquiringly. Finally, to our great 
terror, a railway director, a tall, gentlemanly man, took his 
seat in our very compartment, where Miss Florence's basket 
garnished the pocket above our heads, and she was in one 
of her most querulous moods. At every stopping-place she 
gave her little sniffs and howls, and rattled her basket so 
as to draw all eyes. We all tried to look innocent and 
unconscious, but the polite railroad director very easily 
perceived what was the matter. He looked from one 
anxious, half-laughing face to the others, with a kindly 
twinkle in his eye, but said nothing. All the guards and 
employes bowed down to him, and came cap in hand at 
every stopping-place to take his orders. What a relief it 
was to hear him say, in a low voice, to them : " These 
young ladies have a little dog which they are carrying. 
Take no notice of it, and do not disturb them ! " Of 



128 OUR DOGS. 

course, after that, though Florence barked and howled and 
rattled her basket, and sometimes showed her great eyes, 
like two coal-black diamonds, through its lattice-work, 
nobody saw and nobody heard, and' we came unmolested 
with her to Paris. 

After a while she grew accustomed to her little travel- 
ling carriage, and resigned herself quietly to go to sleep 
in it ; and so we got her from Paris to Kent, where we 
stopped a few days to visit some friends in a lovely coun- 
try place called Swaylands. 

Here we had presented to us another pet, that was 
ever after the chosen companion and fast friend of Flor- 
ence. He was a little Skye terrier, of the color of a Mal- 
tese cat, covered all over with fine, long, silky hair, which 
hung down so evenly, that it was difficult at the first glance 
to say which was his head and which his tail. But at the 
head end there gleamed out a pair of great, soft, speaking 
eyes, that formed the only beauty of the creature ; and 
very beautiful they were, in their soft, beseeching loving- 
ness. 

Poor Rag had the tenderest heart that ever was hid in 
a bundle of hair ; he was fidelity and devotion itself, and 
used to lie at our feet in the railroad carriages as still as 
a gray sheep-skin, only too happy to be there on any 
terms. It would be too long to tell our travelling adven- 
tures in England ; suffice it to say, that at last we wenf 



OUR DOGS. 129 

on board the Africa to come home, with our two pets, 
which had to be handed over to the butcher, and slept on 
quarters of mutton and sides of beef, till they smelt of tal- 
low and grew fat in a most vulgar way. 

At last both of them were safely installed in the brown 
stone cottage in Andover, and Rag was presented to a 
young lady to whom he had been sent as a gift from 
England, and to whom he attached himself with the most 
faithful devotion. 

Both dogs insisted on having their part of the daily 
walks and drives of their young mistresses ; and, when they 
observed them putting on their hats, would run, and bark, 
and leap, and make as much noise as a family of children 
clamoring for a ride. 

After a few months, Florence had three or four little 
puppies. Very puny little things they were ; and a fierce, 
nervous little mother she made. Her eyes looked blue as 
burnished steel, and if anybody only set foot in the room 
where her basket was, her hair would bristle, and she 
would bark so fiercely as to be quite alarming. For all 
that, her little ones proved quite a failure, for they were 
all stone-blind. In vain we waited and hoped and watched 
for nine days, and long after; the eyes were glazed and 
dim, and one by one they died. The last two seemed to 
promise to survive, and were familiarly known in the family 
oircle oy the names of Milton and Beethoven. 
9 



F30 OUR DOGS. 

But the fatigues of nursing exhausted the delicate consti- 
tution of poor Florence, and she lay all one day in spasms. 
It became evident that a tranquil passage must be secured 
for Milton and Beethoven to the land of shades, or their 
little mother would go there herself; and accordingly they 
vanished from this life. 

As to poor Flo, the young medical student in the family 
took her into a water-cure course of treatment, wrapping 
her in a wet napkin first, and then in his scarlet flannel 
dressing-gown, and keeping a wet cloth with iced water 
round her head. She looked out of her wrappings, patient 
and pitiful, like a very small old African female, in a very 
serious state of mind. To the glory of the water-cure, 
however, this course in one day so cured her, that she 
was frisking about the next, happy as if nothing had hap- 
pened. 

She had, however, a slight attack of the spasms, which 
caused her to run frantically and cry to have the hall-door 
opened ; and when it was opened, she scampered up in all 
haste into the chamber of her medical friend, and, not 
finding him there, jumped upon his bed, and began with 
her teeth and paws to get around her the scarlet dressing- 
gown in which she had found relief before. So she was 
again packed in wet napkins, and after that never had 
another attack. 

After this, Florence was begged from us by a lady whc 



OUR DOGS. 131 

fell in love witn her beautiful eyes, and she went to reside 

in a most lovely cottage in H , where she received 

the devoted attentions of a whole family. The family 
physician, however, fell violently in love with her, and, by 
dint of caring for her in certain little ailments, awakened 
such a sentiment in return, that at last she was given to 
him, and used to ride about in state with him in his car- 
riage, visiting his patients, and giving her opinion on their 
symptoms. 

At last her health grew delicate and her appetite failed. 
In vain chicken, and chops, and all the delicacies that could 
tempt the most fastidious, were offered to her, cooked ex- 
pressly for her table ; the end of all things fair must come, 
and poor Florence breathed her last, and was put into a 
little rosewood casket, lined with white, and studded with 
silver nails, and so buried under a fine group of chestnuts 
in the grounds of her former friends. A marble tablet was 
to be affixed to one of these, commemorating her charms ; 
but, like other spoiled beauties, her memory soon faded, 
and the tablet has been forgotten. 

The mistress of Rag, who is devoted to his memory, in- 
sists that not enough space has been given in this memoir 
to his virtues. But the virtues of honest Rag were of that 
kind which can be told in a few sentences, — a warm, lov- 
ing heart, a boundless desire to be loved, and a devotion 
tl.it made hirr regard with superstitious veneration all the 



T32 OUR DOGS. 

movements of his mistress. The only shrewd trick he pos- 
sessed was a habit of drawing on her sympathy by feigning 
a lame leg whenever she scolded or corrected him. In his 
English days he had had an injury from the kick of a 
horse, which, however, had long since been healed ; but he 
remembered the petting he got for this infirmity, and so 
recalled it whenever he found that his mistress's stock of 
affection was running low. A blow or a harsh .word would 
cause him to limp in an alarming manner ; but a few 
caresses would set matters all straight again. 

Rag had been a frantic ratter, and often roused the 
whole family by his savage yells after rats that he heard 
gambolling quite out of his reach behind the partitions in 
the china closet. He would crouch his head on his fore- 
paws, and lie watching at rat-holes, in hopes of intercepting 
some transient loafer; and one day he actually broke the 
back and bones of a gray old thief whom he caught ma- 
rauding in the china closet. 

Proud and happy was he of this feat ; but, poor fellow ! 
he had to repose on the laurels thus gained, for his teeth 
were old and poor, and more than one old rebel slipped 
away from him, leaving him screaming with disappointed 
ambition. 

At last poor Rag became aged and toothless, and ? 
shake which he one day received from a big dog, who took 
him for a bundle of wick-yarn, hastened the breaking up 



OUR DOGS. 133 

of his constitution. He was attacked with acute rheuma- 
tism, and, notwithstanding the most assiduous cares of his 
mistress, died at last in her arms. 

Funeral honors were decreed him ; white chrysanthemums 
and myrtle leaves decked his bier. And so Rag was gath- 
ered to the dogs which had gone before him. 



V. 



\ X 7 ELL, after the departure of Madam Florence there 
* * was a long cessation of the dog mania in our fam- 
i.y. We concluded that we would have no more pets ; for 
they made too much anxiety, and care, and trouble, and 
broke all our hearts by death or desertion. 

At last, however, some neighbors of ours took unto them- 
selves, to enliven their dwelling, a little saucy Scotch ter- 
rier, whose bright eyes and wicked tricks so wrought upon 
the heart of one of our juvenile branches, that there was 
no rest in the camp without this addition to it. Nothing 
was so pretty, so bright, so knowing and cunning, as a 
u Scotch terrier," and a Scotch terrier we must have, — so 
said Miss Jenny, our youngest. 

And so a bargain was struck by one of Jenny's friends 
with some of the knowing ones in Boston, and home she 
came, the happy possessor of a genuine article, — as wide 



124 OUR DOGS. 

awake, impertinent, frisky, and wicked a little elf as ever 
was covered with a shock of rough tan-colored hair. 

His mistress no sooner gazed on him, than she was in- 
spired to give him a name suited to his peculiar character ; 
■ — so he frisked into the front door announced as Wix, and 
soon made himself perfectly at home in the family circle, 
which he took, after his own fashion, by storm. He entered 
the house like a small whirlwind, dashed, the first thing, 
into the Professor's study, seized a slipper which was dang- 
ling rather uncertainly on one of his studious feet, and, 
wresting it off, raced triumphantly with it around the hall, 
barking distractedly every minute that he was not shaking 
and worrying his prize. 

Great was the sensation. Grandma tottered with trem- 
bling steps to the door, and asked, with hesitating tones, 
what sort of a creature that might be ; and being saluted 
with the jubilant proclamation, "Why, Grandma, it's my 
dog, — a real genuine, Scotch terrier ; he '11 never grow any 
larger, and he 's a perfect beauty ! don't you think so ? " — 
Grandma could only tremblingly reply, " O, there is not 
any danger of his going mad, is there ? Is he generally so 
plavful ? " 

Playful was certainly a mild term ior the tempest of ex 
citement in which master Wix flew round and round in 
giddy circles, springing over ottomans, diving under sofas, 
barking from beneath chairs, and resisting every effort to 



OUR DOGS. 135 

recapture the slipper with bristling hair and blazing eyes, 
as if the whole of his dog-life consisted in keeping his 
prize ; till at length he caught a glimpse of pussy's tail, — 
at which, dropping the slipper, he precipitated himself after 
the flying meteor, tumbling, rolling, and scratching down 
the kitchen stairs, and standing on his hind-legs barking 
distractedly at poor Tom, who had taken refuge in the sink, 
and sat with his tail magnified to the size of a small 
bolster. 

This cat, the most reputable and steady individual of his 
species, the darling of the most respectable of cooks, had 
received the name of Thomas Henry, by which somewhat 
lengthy appellation he was generally designated in the fam- 
ily circle, as a mark of the respect which his serious and 
contemplative manner commonly excited. Thomas had but 
one trick of popularity. With much painstaking and care 
the cook had taught him the act of performing a somerset 
over our hands when held at a decent height from the 
floor ; and for this one elegant accomplishment, added to 
great success in his calling of rat-catching, he was held in 
great consideration in the family, and had meandered his 
decorous way about house, slept in the sun, and otherwise 
conducted himself with the innocent and tranquil freedom 
which became a family cat of correct habits and a good 
conscience. 

The irruption of Wix into our establishment was like 



I36 OUR DOGS. 

the bursting of a bomb at the feet of some respectable 
citizen going tranquilly to market. Thomas was a cat of 
courage, and rats of the largest size shrunk appalled at the 
very sight of his whiskers ; but now he sat in the sink 
quite cowed, consulting with great, anxious yellow eyes the 
throng of faces that followed Wix down the stairs, and 
watching anxiously the efforts Miss Jenny was making to 
subdue and quiet him. 

"Wix, you naughty little rascal, you must n't bark at 
Thomas Henry ; be still ! " Whereat Wix, understanding 
himself to be blamed, brought forth his trump card of ac- 
complishments, which he always offered by way of pacifica- 
tion whenever he was scolded. He reared himself up on 
his hind-legs, hung his head languishingly on one side, 
lolled out his tongue, and made a series of supplicatory 
gestures with his fore-paws, — a trick which never failed 
to bring down the house in a storm of applause, and 
carry him out of any scrape with flying colors. 

Poor Thomas Henry, from his desolate sink, saw his ter- 
rible rival carried off in Miss Jenny's arms amid the ap- 
plauses of the whole circle, and had abundance of time to 
reflect on the unsubstantial nature of popularity. After 
that he grew dejected and misanthropic, — a real Cardinal 
Wolsey in furs, — for Wix was possessed with a perfect 
cat-hunting mania, and, whenever he was not employed in 
other mischief, was always ready for a bout with Thomas 
Henry. 



OUR DOGS. 137 

It is true, he sometimes came back from these encoun- 
ters with a scratched and bloody nose, for Thomas Henry 
was a cat of no mean claw, and would turn to bay at 
times ; but generally he felt the exertion too much for his 
advanced years and quiet habits, and so for safety he 
passed much of his time in the sink, over the battlements 
of which he would leisurely survey the efforts of the enemy 
to get at him. The cook hinted strongly of the danger of 
rheumatism to her favorite from these damp quarters, but 
Wix at present was the reigning favorite, and it was vain 
to dispute his sway. 

Next to Thomas Henry, Wix directed his principal 
efforts to teasing Grandmamma. Something or other about 
her black dress and quiet movements seemed to suggest to 
him suspicions. He viewed her as something to be nar- 
rowly watched ; he would lie down under some chair or 
table, and watch her motions with his head on his fore- 
paws as if he were watching at a rat-hole. She evidently 
was not a rat, he seemed to say to himself, but who knows 
what she may be ; and he would wink at her with his 
great bright eyes, and, if she began to get up, would 
spring from his ambush and bark at her feet with frantic 
energy, — by which means he nearly threw her over two 
or three times. 

His young mistress kept a rod, and put him through a 
severe course of discipline for these offences ; after which 



J 38 OUR DOGS. 

he grew more careful, — but still the unaccountable fascina- 
tion seemed to continue ; still he would lie in ambush, and, 
though forbidden to bark, would dart stealthily forward 
when he saw her preparing to rise, and be under her dress 
smelling in a suspicious manner at her heels. He would 
spring from his place at the fire, and rush to the staircase 
when he heard her leisurely step descending the stairs, 
and once or twice nearly overset her by being under her* 
heels, bringing on himself a chastisement which he in 
vain sought to avert by the most vigorous deprecatory 
pawing. 

Grandmamma's favorite evening employment was to sit 
sleeping in her chair, gradually bobbing her head lower 
and lower, — all which movements Wix would watch, giving 
a short snap, or a suppressed growl, at every bow. What 
he would have done, if, as John Bunyan says, he had been 
allowed to have his "doggish way" with her, it is impos- 
sible to say. Once he succeeded in seizing the slipper 
from her foot as she sat napping, and a glorious race he 
had with it, — out at the front door, up the path to the 
Theological Seminary, and round and round the halls con- 
secrated to better things, with all the glee of an imp. At 
another time he made a dart into her apartment, and 
seized a turkey-wing which the good old lady had used 
for a duster, and made such a regular forenoon's work of 
worrying, shaking, and teasing it, that every feather in it 
was utterly demolished. 



OUR DOGS. 139 

In fact, there was about Wix something so elfish and 
mpish, that there began to be shrewd suspicions that he 
must be somehow or other a descendant of the celebrated 
poodle of Faust, and that one need not be surprised some 
day tc have him suddenly looming up into some uncanny 
shape, or entering into conversation, and uttering all 
soits of improprieties unbefitting a theological professor's 
family. 

He had a persistence in wicked ways that resisted the 
most energetic nurture and admonition of his young mis- 
tress. His combativeness was such, that a peaceable walk 
down the fashionable street of Zion Hill in his company 
became impossible ; all was race and scurry, cackle and 
flutter, wherever he appeared, — hens and poultry flying, 
frightened cats mounting trees with magnified tails, dogs 
yelping and snarling, and children and cows running in 
every direction. No modest young lady could possibly 
walk out in company with such a son of confusion. Be- 
side this, Wix had his own private inexplicable personal 
piques against different visitors in the family, and in the 
most unexpected moment would give a snap or a nip to 
whe most unoffending person. His friends in the family 
circle dropped off. His ways were pronounced too bad, 
his conduct perfectly indefensible ; his young mistress 
alone clung to him, and declared that her vigorous sys- 
tem of education would at last reform his eccentricities, 



140 OUR DOGS. 

and turn him out a tip-top dog. But when he would slyly 
leave home, and, after rolling and steeping himself in the 
ill-smelling deposits of the stable or drain, come home 
and spring with impudent ease into her lap, or put 
himself to sleep on her little white bed, the magic cords 
of affection gave out, and disgust began to succeed. It 
began to be remarked that this was a stable-dog, educated 
for the coach-boy and stable, and to be doubted whether 
it was worth while to endeavor to raise him to a lady's 
boudoir ; and so at last, when the family removed from 
Zion Hill, he was taken back and disposed of at a some- 
what reduced price. 

Since then, as we are informed, he has risen to fame 
and honor. His name has even appeared in sporting ga- 
zettes as the most celebrated "ratter" in little Boston, and 
his mistress was solemnly assured by his present possessor 
that for " cat work " he was unequalled, and that he would 
not take fifty dollars for him. From all which it appears 
that a dog which is only a torment and a nuisance in 
one sphere may be an eminent character in another. 

The catalogue of our dogs ends with Wix. Whether 
we shall ever have another or not we cannot tell, but in 
the following pages I will tell my young readers a few true 
stories of other domestic pets which may amuse them. 




DOGS AND CATS 



A ND now, with all and each of the young friends who 
**• have read these little histories of our dogs, we want 
to have a few moments of quiet chat about dogs and 
household pets in general. 

In these stories you must have noticed that each dog 
had as much his own character as if he had been a human 
being. Carlo was not like Rover, nor Rover like Giglio, 
nor Giglio like Florence, nor Florence like Rag, nor Rag 
like Wix, — any more than Cnarley is like Fred, or Fred 



142 DOGS AND CATS 

like Henry, or Henry like Eliza, or Eliza like Julia. Every 
animal has his own character, as marked and distinct as a 
human being. Many people who have not studied much 
into the habits of animals don't know this. To them a 
dog is a dog, a cat a cat, a horse a horse, and no more,— 
that is the end of it. 

But domestic animals that associate with human beings 
develop a very different character from what they would 
possess in a wild state. Dogs, for example, in those coun- 
tries where there is a prejudice against receiving them 
into man's association, herd together, and become wild and 
fierce like wolves. This is the case in many Oriental 
countries, where there are superstitious ideas about dogs ; 
as, for instance, that they are unclean and impure. But in 
other countries, the dog, for the most part, forsakes all 
other dogs to become the associate of man. A dog with- 
out a master is a forlorn creature ; no society of other 
dogs seems to console him ; he wanders about disconsolate, 
till he finds some human being to whom to - attach himself, 
and then he is a made iog, — he pads about with an air 
of dignity, like a dog that is settled in life. 

There are among dogs certain races or large divisions 
and those belonging purely to any of those races are called 
blood-dogs. As examples of what we mean by these races, 
we will mention the spaniel, the mastiff, the bulldog, the 
hound, and the terrier ; and each of these divisions contains 



DOGS AND CATS. 1 43 

many species, and each has a strongly marked character. 
The spaniel tribes are gentle, docile, easily attached to man ; 
from them many hunting dogs are trained. The bulldog 
is irritable, a terrible fighter, and fiercely faithful to his 
master. A mastiff is strong, large, not so fierce as the 
bulldog, but watchful and courageous, with a peculiar sense 
of responsibility in guarding anything which is placed under 
his charge. The hounds are slender, lean, wiry, with a 
long, pointed muzzle, and a peculiar sensibility in the sense 
of smell, and their instincts lead them to hunting and 
tracking. As a general thing, they are cowardly and in- 
disposed to combat ; there are, however, remarkable excep- 
tions, as you will see if you read the account of the 
good black hound which Sir Walter Scott tells about in 
"The Talisman," — a story which I advise you to read at 
your next leisure. The terriers are, for the most part, 
small dogs, smart, bright, and active, very intelligent, and 
capable of being taught many tricks. Of these there are 
several varieties, — as the English black and tan, which is 
the neatest and prettiest pet a family of children can have, 
as his hair is so short and close that he can harbor no 
fleas, and he is always good-tempered, lively, and affection- 
ate. The Skye terrier, with his mouse-colored mop of hair, 
ind his great bright eyes, is very loving and very saga- 
cious ; b\it alas ! unless you can afford a great deal of time 
tor soap, water, and fine-tooth-comb exercises, he will bring 



144 DOGS AND CATS. 

more company than you will like. The Scotch terriers 
are rough, scraggy, affectionate, but so nervous, frisky, and 
mischievous that they are only to be recommended as out- 
door pets in barn and stable. They are capital rat-catchers, 
very amicable with horses, and will sit up by the driver or 
a coach-boy with an air of great sagacity. 

There is something very curious about the habits and 
instincts of certain dogs which have been trained by man 
for his own purposes. In the mountains of Scotland, there 
are a tribe of dogs called Shepherd-dogs, which for gener- 
ations and ages have helped the shepherds to take care of 
their sheep and which, look for all the world like long- 
nosed, high-cheek-boned, careful old Scotchmen. You will 
see them in the morning, trotting out their flock of sheep 
walking about with a grave, care-taking air, and at evening 
all bustle and importance, hurrying and scurrying hither 
and thither, getting their charge all together for the night. 
An old Scotchman tells us that his dog Hector, by long 
sharing his toils and cares, got to looking so much like 
him, that once, when he felt too sleepy to go to meeting 
he sent Hector to take his seat in the pew, and the min- 
ister never knew the difference, but complimented him the 
next day for his good attention to the sermon. 

There is a kind of dog employed by the monks of St. 
Bernard in the Alps, to go out and seek in the snow fo* 
travellers who may have lost their way ; and this habi 






DOGS AND CATS. 145 

becomes such a strong instinct in them, that I once knew 
a puppy of this species which was brought by a shipmaster 
to Maine, and grew up in a steady New England town, 
which used to alarm his kind friends by rushing off into 
the pine forest in snow-storms, and running anxiously up 
and down burrowing in the snow as if in quest of some- 
thing. 

I have seen one of a remarkable breed of dogs that are 
brought from the island of Manilla. They resemble mastiffs 
in their form, but are immensely large and strong. They 
are trained to detect thieves, and kept by merchants on 
board of vessels where the natives are very sly and much 
given to stealing. They are called holders, and their way 
is, when a strange man, whose purposes they do not under- 
stand, comes on board the ship, to take a very gentle but 
decisive hold of him by the heel, and keep him fast until 
somebody comes to look after him. The dog I knew of 
this species stood about as high as an ordinary dining-table, 
and I have seen him stroke off the dinner-cloth with one 
wag of his tail in his pleasure when I patted his head. 
He was very intelligent and affectionate. 

There is another dog, which may often be seen in Paris, 
called the Spitz dog. He is a white, smooth-haired, small 
creature, with a great muff of stiff hair round his neck, 
and generally comes into Paris riding horseback on the 
cart horses which draw the carts of the washerwomen. He 



I46 DOGS AND CATS. 

races nimbly up and down on the back of the great heavy 
horses, barking from right to left with great animation, and 
is said to be a most faithful little creature in guarding the 
property of his owner. What is peculiar about these little 
dogs is the entireness of their devotion to their master 
They have not a look, not a wag of the tail, for any one 
else ; it is vain for a stranger to try and make friends with 
them, — they have eyes and ears for one alone. 

All dogs which do not belong to some of the great vari- 
eties, on the one side of their parentage or the other, are 
classed together as curs, and very much undervalued and 
decried ; and yet among these mongrel curs we have seen 
individuals quite as sagacious, intelligent, and affectionate 
as the best blood-dogs. 

And now I want to say some things to those young 
people who desire to adopt as domestic pets either a dog 
or a cat. Don't do it without making up your mind to be 
really and thoroughly kind to them, and feeding them as 
carefully as you feed yourself, and giving them appropriate 
shelter from the inclemency of the weather. 

Some people seem to have a general idea that throwing 
a scrap, or bone, or bit of refuse meat, at odd intervals, 
to a dog, is taking abundant care of him. " What 's the 
matter with him? he can't be hungry, — I gave him thai 
great bme yesterday." Ah, Master Hopeful, how would 
you like to be fed on the same principle ? When you show 



DOGS AND CATS. 147 

your hungry face at the dinner-table, suppose papa should 
say, " What 's that boy here for ? He was fed this morn 
ing." You would think this hard measure ; yet a dog's 01 
cat's stomach digests as rapidly as yours. In like manner, 
dogs are often shut out of the house in cold winter weather 
without the least protection being furnished them. A lady 
and I looked out once, in a freezing icy day, and saw a 
great Newfoundland cowering in a corner of a fence to 
keep from the driving wind ; and I said, " Do tell me if 
you have no kennel for that poor creature." "No," said 
the lady. " I did n't know that dogs needed shelter. Now 
I think of it, I remember last spring he seemed quite 
poorly, and his hair seemed to come out ; do you suppose 
it was being exposed so much in the winter?" This lady 
had taken into her family a living creature, without ever 
having reflected on what that creature needed, or that it 
was her duty to provide for its wants. 

Dogs can btar more cold than human beings, but they 
do not like cold any better than we do ; and when a dog 
has his choice, he will very gladly stretch himself on a rug 
before the fire for his afternoon nap, and show that he en- 
joys the blaze and warmth as much as anybody. 

As to cats, many people seem to think that a miserable, 
half-starved beast, never fed, and always hunted and beaten, 
and with no rights that anybody is bound to respect, is a 
ne:essary appendage to a family. They have the idea that 



I48 DOGS AND CATS. 

all a cat is good for is to catch rats, and that if well fed 
they will not do this, — and so they starve them. This is 
a mistake in fact. Cats are hunting animals, and have the 
natural instinct to pursue and catch prey, and a cat that is 
a good mouser will do this whether well or ill fed. To live 
only upon rats is said to injure the health of the cat, and 
bring on convulsions. 

The most beautiful and best trained cat I ever knew was 
named Juno, and was brought up by a lady who was so 
wise in all that related to the care and management of 
animals, that she might be quoted as authority on all 
points of their nurture and breeding ; and Juno, carefully 
trained by such a mistress, was a standing example of the 
virtues which may be formed in a cat by careful education. 

Never was Juno known to be out of place, to take her 
nap elsewhere than on her own appointed cushion, to be 
absent at meal-times, or, when the most tempting dainties 
were in her power, to anticipate the proper time by jump- 
ing on the table to help herself. 

In all her personal habits Juno was of a neatness unpar- 
alleled in cat history. The parlor of her mistress was 
always of a waxen and spotless cleanness, and Juno would 
have died sooner than violate its sanctity by any impro- 
priety. She was a skilful mouser, and her sleek, glossy 
•sides were a sufficient refutation of the absurd notion that 
a cat must be starved into a display of her accomplish 



DOGS AND CATS. 1 49 

ments. Every rat, mouse, or ground mole that she caught 
was brought in and laid at the feet of her mistress for 
approbation. But on one point her mind was dark. She 
could never be made to comprehend the great difference 
between fur and feathers, nor see why her mistress should 
gravely reprove her when she brought in a bird, and 
warmly commend when she captured a mouse. 

After a while a little dog named Pero, with whom Juno 
had struck up a friendship, got into the habit of coming to 
her mistress's apartment at the hours when her modest- 
meals were served, on which occasions Pero thought it 
would be a good idea to invite himself to make a third. 
He had a nice little trick of making himself amiable, by 
sitting up on his haunches, and making little begging ges- 
tures with his two fore-paws, — which so much pleased his 
hostess that sometimes he was fed before Juno. Juno ob- 
served this in silence for some time ; but at last a bright 
idea struck her, and, gravely rearing up on her haunches, 
she imitated Pero's gestures with her fore-paws. Of course 
this carried the day, and secured her position. 

Cats are often said to have no heart, — to be attached 
to places, but incapable of warm personal affection. It was 
reserved for Juno by her sad end to refute this slander on 
her race. Her mistress was obliged to leave her quiet home, 
And go to live in a neighboring city ; so she gave Juno to 
the good lady who inhabited the other part of the house. 



I50 DOGS AND CATS. 

But no attentions or care on the part of her new mis- 
tress could banish from Juno's mind the friend she had lost 
The neat little parlor where she had spent so many pleasant 
hours was dismantled and locked up, but Juno would go, 
day after day, and sit on the ledge of the window-seat, 
looking in and mewing dolefully. She refused food ; and, 
when too weak to mount on the sill and look in, stretched 
herself on the ground beneath the window, where she died 
for love of her mistress, as truly as any lover in an old 
ballad. 

You see by this story the moral that I wish to convey. 
It is, that watchfulness, kindness, and care will develop a 
nature in animals such as we little dream of. Love will 
beget love, regular care and attention will give regular 
habits, and thus domestic pets may be made agreeable and 
interesting. 

Any one who does not feel an inclination or capacity to 
take itie amount of care and pains necessary for the well- 
be~.g uf an animal ought conscientiously to abstain from 
having one in charge. A carefully tended pet, whether dog 
or cat, is a pleasant addition to a family of young people ; 
but a neglected, ill-brought-up, ill-kept one is only an an- 
noyance. 

We should remember, too, in all our dealings with ani- 
mals, that they are a sacred trust to us from our Heavenly 
Father. They are dumb, and cannot speak for themselves 



DOGS AND CATS. 151 

the} cannot explain their wants or justify their conduct ; 
and therefore we should be tender towards them. 

Our Lord says not even a little sparrow falls to the ground 
without our Heavenly Father, and we may believe that his 
eye takes heed of the disposition which we show towards 
those defenceless beings whom he thinks worthy of his pro- 
tection. 



AUVT ESTHER'S RULES. 

T N the last number I told my little friends about my 
■*• good Aunt Esther, and her wonderful cat Juno, ana 
her dog Pero. In thinking what to write for this month, 
my mind goes far back to the days when I was a little 
girl, and used to spend many happy hours in Aunt Es- 
ther's parlor talking with her. Her favorite subject was 
always the habits and character of different animals, and 
their various ways and instincts, and she used to tell us 
so many wonderful, yet perfectly authentic, stories about all 
these things, that the hours passed away very quickly. 

Some of her rules for the treatment and care of animals 
have impressed themselves so distinctly on my mind, that 
I shall never forget them, and I am going to repeat some 
of them to you. 

One was, never to frighten an animal for sport. I recol- 
lect I had a little white kitten, of which I was very fond, 
and one day I was amusing myself with making her walk 
up and down the key-board of the piano, and laughing to 
see her fright at the strange noises which came up under 
her feet. Puss evidently thought the place was haunted, 
and tried to escape ; it never occurred to me, however 
that there was any cruelty in the operation, till Aunt Es* 



aunt Esther's rules. 153 

ther said to me, " My dear, you must never frighten an 
animal. I have suffered enough from fear to know that 
there is no suffering more dreadful ; and a helpless animal, 
that cannot speak to tell its fright, and cannot understand 
an explanation of what alarms it, ought to move your 
pity." 

I had never thought of this before, and then I remem- 
bered how, when I was a very, very little girl, a grown-up 
boy in school had amused himself with me and my little 
brother in much the same way as that in which I had 
amused myself with the kitten. He hunted us under one 
of the school-room tables by threatening to cut our ears 
off if we came out, and took out his pen-knife, and opened 
it, and shook it at us whenever we offered to move. Very 
likely he had not the least idea that we really could be 
made to suffer with fear at so absurd a threat, — any 
more than I had that my kitten could possibly be afraid 
of the piano ; but our suffering was in fact as real as if 
the boy really had intended what he said, and was really 
able to execute it. 

Another thing which Aunt Esther strongly impressed on 
my mind was, that, when there were domestic animals 
about a house which were not wanted in a family, it was 
tar kinder to have them killed in some quick and certain 
way than to chase them out of the house, and leave them 
vo wander homeless, to be starved, beaten, and abused. 



£54 AUNT ESTHERS RULES. 

Aunt Esther was a great advocate for killing animals, and, 
tender-hearted as she was, she gave us many instructions 
in the kindest and quickest way of disposing of one whose 
life must be sacrificed. 

Her instructions sometimes bore most remarkable fruits. 
I recollect one little girl, who had been trained under Aunt 
Esther's care, was once coming home from school across 
Boston Common, when she saw a party of noisy boys, and 
dogs tormenting a poor kitten by the side of the frog pond. 
The little wretches would throw it into the water, and then 
laugh at its vain and frightened efforts to paddle out, while 
the dogs added to its fright by their ferocious barking. 
Belle was a bright-eyed, spirited little puss, and her whole 
soul was roused in indignation ; she dashed in among the 
throng of boys and dogs, and rescued the poor half-drowned 
little animal. The boys, ashamed, slunk away, and little 
Belle held the poor, cold, shivering little creature, consider- 
ing what to do for it. It was half dead already, and she 
was embarrassed by the reflection that at home there was 
no room for another pet, for both cat and kitten never 
were wanting in their family. "Poor kit," she said, "you 
must die, but I will see that you are not tormented " ; — 
and she knelt bravely down and held the little thing under 
water, with the tears running down her own cheeks, till all 
its earthly sorrows were over, and little kit was beyond the 
reach of dog or boy. 



AUNT ESTHER'S RULES. 155 

This was real brave humanity. Many peopie call them- 
selves tender-hearted, because they are unwilling to have a 
litter of kittens killed, and so they go and throw them 
over fences, into people's back yards, and comfort them- 
selves with the reflection that they will do well enough. 
What becomes of the poor little defenceless things? In 
nine cases out of ten they live a hunted, miserable life, 
crying from hunger, shivering with cold, harassed by cruel 
dogs, and tortured to make sport for brutal boys. How 
much kinder and more really humane to take upon our- 
selves the momentary suffering of causing the death of an 
animal than to turn our back and leave it to drag out 
a life of torture and misery ! 

Aunt Esther used to protest much against another kind 
of torture which well-meaning persons inflict on animals, in 
giving them as playthings to very little children who do 
not know how to handle them. A mother sometimes will 
sit quietly sewing, while her baby boy is tormenting a help- 
less kitten, poking his fingers into its eyes, pulling its tail, 
stretching it out as on a rack, squeezing its feet, and, when 
the poor little tormented thing tries to run away, will send 
the nurse to catch dear little Johnny's kitten for him. 

Aunt Esther always remonstrated, too, against all the 
practical jokes and teasing of animals, which many people 
practise under the name of sport, — like throwing a dog 
into the water for the sake of seeing him paddle out, dash- 



156 aunt Esther's rules. 

ing water upon the cat, or doing any of the many little 
tricks by which animals are made uncomfortable. "They 
have but one short little life to live, they are dumb and 
cannot complain, and they are wholly in our powei " — 
these were the motives by which she appealed to our gen- 
erosity. 

Aunt Esther's boys were so well trained, that they would 
fight valiantly for the rescue of any ill-treated animals. 
Little Master Bill was a bright-eyed fellow, who was n't 
much taller than his father's knee, and wore a low-necked 
dress with white ruffles. But Bill had a brave heart in his 
little body, and so one day, as he was coming from school, 
he dashed in among a crowd of dogs which were pursuing 
a kitten, took it away from them, and held it as high above 
his head as his little arm could reach. The dogs jumped 
upon his white neck with their rough paws, and scratched 
his face, but still he stood steady till a man came up and 
took the kitten and frightened away the dogs. Master Bill 
grew up to be a man, and at the battle of Gettysburg stood 
a three days' fight, and resisted the charge of the Louisiana 
Tigers as of old he withstood the charge of the dogs. A 
really brave-hearted fellow is generally tender and compas- 
sionate to the weak ; only cowards torment that which is 
not strong enough to fight them ; only cowards starve help- 
less prisoners or torture helpless animals. 

I can't help hoping that, in these stories about different 



AUNT ESTHERS RULES. 



157 



pets, I have made some friends among the boys, and that 
they will remember what I have said, and resolve always 
to defend the weak, and not permit any cruelty where it- 
is in their power to prevent it. Boys, you are strong and 
brave little fellows ; but you ought n't to be strong and 
brave for nothing ; and if every boy about the street would 
set himself to defending helpless animals, we should see 
much less cruelty than we now do. 




AUNT ESTHER'S STORIES. 

A UNT ESTHER used to be a constant attendant upon 
■^ ^ us young ones whenever we were a little ill, or any 
of the numerous accidents of childhood overtook us. In 
such seasons of adversity she always came to sit by our 
bedside, and take care of us. She did not, as some people 
do, bring a long face and a doleful whining voice into a 
sick-room, but was always so bright, and cheerful, and 
chatty, that we began to think it was almost worth while 
to be sick to have her about us. I remember that once, 
when I had the quinsy, and my throat was so swollen that 
it brought the tears every time I swallowed, Aunt Esther 
talked to me so gayly, and told me so many stories, that I 
found myself laughing heartily, and disposed to regard my 
aching throat as on the whole rather an amusing circum- 
stance. 

Aunt Esther's stories were not generally fairy tales, but 
stories about real things, — and more often on her favorite 
subject of the habits of animals, and the different animals 
she had known, than about anything else. 

One of these was a famous Newfoundland dog, named 
Prince, which belonged to an uncle of hers in the country, 
and was, as we thought a far more useful and faithfiii 



AUNT ESTHERS STORIES. 159 

member of society than many of us youngsters. Prince 
used to be a grave, sedate dog, that considered himself put 
in trust of the farm, the house, the cattle, and all that was 
on the place. At night he slept before t£e kitchen door, 
which, like all other doors in the house in those innocent 
days, was left unlocked all night ; and if such a thing had 
ever happened as that a tramper or an improper person of 
any kind had even touched the latch of the door, Prince 
would have been up attending to him as master of cere- 
monies. 

At early dawn, when the family began to stir, Prince 
was up and out to superintend the milking of the cows, 
after which he gathered them all • together, and started out 
with them to pasture, padding steadily along behind, dash- 
ing out once in a while to reclaim some wanderer that 
thoughtlessly began to make her breakfast by the roadside, 
instead of saving her appetite for the pastures, as a prop- 
erly behaved cow should. Arrived at the pastuie-lot, 
Prince would take down the bars with his teeth, drive in 
the cows, put up bars, and then soberly turn tail and pad 
off home, and carry the dinner-basket for the men to the 
mowing lot, or the potato-field, or wherever the labors of 
the day might be. There arrived, he was extremely useful 
to send on errands after anything forgotten or missing. 
" Prince ! the rake is missing : go to the barn and fetch 
it!" and away Prin:e would go, and come back with his 



160 aunt Esther's stories. 

head very high, and the long rake very judiciously bal- 
anced in his mouth. 

One day a friend was wondering at the sagacity of the 
dog, and his master thought he would show off his tricks 
in a still more original style ; and so, calling Prince to 
him, he said, " Go home and bring Puss to me ! " 

Away bounded Prince towards the farm-house, and, look- 
ing about, found the younger of the two cats, fair Mistress 
Daisy, busy cleaning her white velvet in the summer sun. 
Prince took her gently up by the nape of her neck, and 
carried her, hanging head and heels together, to the fields, 
and laid her down at his master's feet. 

" How 's this, Prince ? " said the master ; " you did n't 
understand me. I said the cat, and this is the kitten. 
Go right back and bring the old cat." 

Prince looked very much ashamed of his mistake, and 
turned away, with drooping ears an4 tail, and went back 
to the house. 

The old cat was a venerable, somewhat portly old dame, 
and no small lift for Prince ; but he reappeared with old 
Puss hanging from his jaws, and set her down, a little dis- 
composed, but not a whit hurt by her unexpected ride. 

Sometimes, to try Prince's skill, his master would hide 
his gloves or riding-whip in some out-of-the-way corner 
and when ready to start, would say, "Now, where have 1 
left my gloves ? Prince, good fellow, run in, and find 



AUNT ESTHERS STORIES. 



161 




them " ; and Prince would dash into the house, and run 
hither and thither with his nose to every nook and corner 
of the room ; and, no matter how artfully they were hid, 
he would upset and tear his way to them. He would turn 
up the corners of the carpet, snuff about the bed, run his 
nose between the feather-bed and mattress, pry into the 
crack of a half-opened drawer, and show as much zeal and 
ingenuity as a policeman, and seldom could anything be so 
hid as to baffle his perseverance. 

Many people laugh at the idea of being careful of a 



1 62 aunt Esther's stories. 

dog's feelings, as if it were the height of absurdity ; and yet 
it is a fact that some dogs are as exquisitely sensitive to 
pain, shame, and mortification, as any human being. See, 
when a dog is spoken harshly to, what a universal droop 
seems to come over him. His head and ears sink, his tail 
drops and slinks between his legs, and his whole air seems to 
say, "I wish I could sink into the earth to hide myself." 

Prince's young master, without knowing it, was the means 
of inflicting a most terrible mortification on him at one 
time. It was very hot weather, and Prince, being a shaggy 
dog, lay panting, and lolling his tongue out, apparently suf- 
fering from the heat. 

"I declare," said young Master George, "I do believe 
Prince would be more comfortable for being sheared." And 
so forthwith he took him and began divesting him of his 
coat. Prince took it all very obediently ; but when he ap- 
peared without his usual attire, every one saluted him with 
roars - of laughter, and Prince was dreadfully mortified. He 
broke away from his master, and scampered off home at a 
desperate pace, ran down cellar and disappeared from view. 
His young master was quite distressed that Prince took 
the matter so to heart ; he followed him in vain, calling, 
" Prince ! Prince ! " No Prince appeared. He lighted a 
candle and searched the cellar, and found the poor crea- 
ture cowering away in the darkest nook under the stairs 
Prince was r»ot to be comforted : he slunk deeper and 



aunt Esther's stories. 163 

rieeper into the darkness, and crouched en the ground 
when he saw his master, and for a long time refused even 
to take food. The family all visited and condoled with him, 
and finally his sorrows were somewhat abated ; but he 
would not be persuaded to leave the cellar for nearly a 
week. Perhaps by that time he indulged the hope that 
his hair was beginning to grow again, and all were careful 
not to destroy the allusion by any jests or comments on 
his appearance. 

Such were some of the stories of Prince's talents and 
exploits which Aunt Esther used to relate to us. What 
finally became of the old fellow we never heard. Let us 
hope that, as he grew old, and gradually lost his strength, 
and felt the infirmities of age creeping on, he was tenderly 
and kindly cared for in memory of the services of his best 
days, — that he had a warm corner by the kitchen fire, 
and was daily spoken to in kindly tones by his old friends. 
Nothing is a sadder sight than to see a poor old favorite, 
that once was petted and caressed by every member of 
the family, now sneaking and cowering as if dreading 
every moment a kick or a blow, — turned from the parlor 
into the kitchen, driven from the kitchen by the cook's 
broomstick, half starved and lonesome. 

O, how much kinder if the poor thread of life were at 
Dnce cut by some pistol-shot, than to have the neglected 
favorite linger only to suffer ! Now, boys, I put it to vou, 



164 aunt Esther's stories. 

is it generous or manly, when your old pet and playmate 
grows sickly and feeble, and can no longer amuse you, to 
forget all the good old times you have had with him, and 
let him become a poor, trembling, hungry, abused vagrant? 
If you cannot provide comforts for his old age, and see to 
his nursing, you can at least secure him an easy and pain- 
less passage from this troublesome world. A manly fellow 
I once knew, who, when his old hound became so diseased 
that he only lived to suffer, gave him a nice meal with his 
own hand, patted his head, got him to sleep, and then 
shot him, — so that he was dead in a moment, felt no 
pain, and knew nothing but kindness to the last. 

And now to Aunt Esther's stories of a dog I must add 
one more which occurred in a town where I once lived. I 
have told you of the fine traits of blood-dogs, their sagacity 
and affection. In doing this, perhaps, I have not done half 
justice to the poor common dogs, of no particular blood or 
breed, that are called curs or mongrels ; yet among these 
I believe you will quite as often find both affection and 
sagacity as among better-born dogs. 

The poor mongrel I am going to tell you about belonged 
to a man who had not, in one respect, half the sense that 
his dog had. A dog will never eat or drink a thing that 
has once made him sick; or injured him ; but this man 
would drink, time and time again, a deadly draught, that 
took away his senses and unfitted him for any of his dirties. 



aunt Esther's stories. 165 

Poor little Pero, however, set her ignorant dog's heart on 
her drinking master, and used to patter faithfully after him, 
and lick his hand respectfully, when nobody else thought 
he was in a condition to be treated with respect. 

One bitter cold winter day, Pero's master went to a gro- 
cery, at some distance from home, on pretence of getting 
groceries, but in reality to fill a very dreadful bottle, that 
was the cause of all his misery ; and little Pero padded 
after him through the whirling snow, although she left 
three poor little pups of her own in the barn. Was it that 
she was anxious for the poor man who was going the bad 
road, or was there some secret thing in her dog's heart 
that warned her that her master was in danger ? We know 
not, but the sad fact is, that at the grocery the poor man 
took enough to make his brain dizzy, and coming home he 
lost his way in a whirling snow-storm, and fell down stupid 
and drunk, not far from his own barn, in a lonesome place, 
with the cold winter's wind sweeping the snow-drift over 
him. Poor little Pero cuddled close to her master and 
nestled in his bosom, as if trying to keep the warm life 
in him. 

Two or three days passed, and nothing was seen or 
heard of the poor man. The snow had drifted over him 
in a long white winding-sheet, when a neighbor one day 
heard a dog in the barn crying to get out. It was poor 
Pero, that had :ome back and slipped in to nurse her 



166 aunt Esther's stories. 

puppies while the barn-door was open, and was now crying 
to get out and go back to her poor master. It suddenly 
occurred to the man that Pero might find the body, and 
in fact, when she started off, he saw a little path which 
her small paws had worn in the snow, and, tracking after, 
found the frozen body. This poor little friend had nestled 
the snow away around the breast, and stayed watching 
and waiting by her dead master, only taking her way 
back occasionally to the barn to nurse her little ones. I 
cannot help asking whether a little animal that can show 
such love and faithfulness has not something worth respect- 
ing and caring for in its nature. 

At this time of the year our city ordinances proclaim 
a general leave and license to take the lives of all dogs 
found in the streets, and scenes of dreadful cruelty are 
often enacted in consequence. I hope, if my stories fall 
under the eye of any boy who may ever witness, or be 
tempted to take part in, the hunting down and killing a 
poor dog, that he will remember of how much faithfulness 
and affection and constancy these poor brutes are capable, 
and, instead of being their tyrant and persecutor, will try 
to make himse 1 ^ their protector and friend. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS DOGS. 

IV /f ASTER Frederick Little-John has of late struck up 
«*■*-!■ quite a friendship with me, and haunts my footsteps 
about house to remind me of my promise to write some 
more dog stories. Master Fred has just received a present 
from his father of a great Newfoundland that stands a 
good deal higher in his stocking-feet than his little master 
in his highest-heeled boots, and he has named him Prince, 
in honor of the Prince that I told you about last month, 
that used to drive the cows to pasture, and take down 
the bars with his teeth. We have daily and hourly ac- 
counts in the family circle of Prince's sayings and doings ; 
for Master Freddy insists upon it that Prince speaks, 
and daily insists upon placing a piece of bread on the top 
of Prince's nose, which at the word of command he fires 
into the air, and catches in his mouth, closing the perform- 
ance with a snap like a rifle. Fred also makes much of 
showing him a bit of meat held high in the air, from which 
he is requested to " speak," — the speaking consisting in 
very short exclamations of the deepest bow-wow. Certain 
it is that Prince shows on these occasions that he has the 
voice for a public speaker, and that, if he does not go 
about the country lecturing, it is because he wants time 



1 68 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS DOGS. 

yet to make up his mind what to say on the topics oi 
the day. 

Fred is somewhat puzzled to make good the ground of 
his favorite with Aunt Zeroiah, who does not love dogs, 
and is constantly casting reflections on them as nuisan- 
ces, dirt-makers, flea-catchers, and flea-scatterers, and in- 
sinuating a plea that Prince should be given away, or in 
some manner sold or otherwise disposed of. 

"Aunt Zeroiah thinks that there is nothing so mean as 
a dog," said Master Fred to me as he sat with his arm 
around the neck of his favorite. " She really seems to 
grudge every morsel of meat a dog eats, and to think that 
every kindness you show a dog is almost a sin. Now I 
think dogs are noble creatures, and have noble feelings, 
— they are so faithful, and so kind and loving. Now I 
do wish you would make haste and write something to 
show her that dogs have been thought a good deal of." 

"Well, Master Freddy," said I, "I will tell you in the 
first place about Sir Walter Scott, whose poems and 
novels have been the delight of whole generations." 

He was just of your opinion about dogs, and he had 
a great many of them. When Washington Irving visited 
Sir Walter at Abbotsford, he found him surrounded bv 
his dogs, which formed as much a part of the family as 
ais children. 

In the morning, when they started for a ramble, the 



SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS DOGS. 



i&; 



dogs would all be on the alert to join them. There was 
first a tall old staghound named Maida, that considered 
himself the confidential friend of his master, walked by 
his side, and looked into his eyes as if asserting a part- 
nership in his thoughts. Then there was a black grey- 
hound named Hamlet, a more frisky and thoughtless youth, 
that gambolled and pranced and barked and cut capers 
with the wildest glee ; and there was a beautiful setter 




170 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS DOGS. 

named Finette, with large mild eyes, soft silken hair, and 
long curly ears, — the favorite of the parlor ; and then a 
venerable old greyhound, wagging his tail, came out to 
join the party as he saw them going by his quarters, and 
was cheered by Scott with a hearty, kind word as an old 
friend and comrade. 

In his walks Scott would often stop and talk to one or 
another of his four-footed friends, as if they were in fact 
rational companions ; and, from being talked to and treated 
in this way, they really seemed to acquire more sagacity 
than other dogs. 

Old Maida seemed to consider himself as a sort of pres- 
ident of the younger dogs, as a dog of years arid reflection, 
whose mind was upon more serious and weighty topics 
than theirs. As he padded along, the younger dogs would 
sometimes try to ensnare him into a frolic, by jumping 
upon his neck and making a snap at his ears. Old Maida 
would bear this in silent dignity for a while, and then 
suddenly, as if his patience were exhausted, he would catch 
one of his tormentors by the neck and tumble him in the 
dirt, giving an apologetic look to his master at the same 
time, as much as to say, "You see, sir, I can't help join- 
*ng a little in this nonsense." 

" Ah," said Scott, " I 've no doubt that, when Maida is 
it-one with these young dogs, he throws dignity aside and 
plays the boy as much as any of them, but he is ashamec 



SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS DOGS. 171 

to do it in our company, and seems to say, ■ Have done 
with your nonsense, youngsters ; what will the Laird and 
that other gentleman think of me if I give way to such 
foolery ? ' " 

At length the younger dogs fancied that they discovered 
something, which set them all into a furious barking. Old 
Maida for some time walked silently by his master, pre- 
tending not to notice the clamors of the inferior dogs. At 
last, however, he seemed to feel himself called on to attend 
to them, and giving a plunge forward he opened his mind 
to them with a deep "Bow-wow," that drowned for the 
time all other noises. Then, as if he had settled matters, 
he returned to his master, wagging* his tail, and looking 
in his face as if for approval. 

" Ay, ay, old boy," said Scott ; " you have done won- 
ders ; you have shaken the Eildon Hills with your roaring, 
and now you may shut up your artillery for the rest of 
the day. Maida," he said, "is like the big gun of Con- 
stantinople, — it takes so long to get it ready that the 
small ones can fire off a dozen times, but when it does 
go off it carries all before it." 

Scott's four-footed friends made a respectful part of the 
company at family meals. Old Maida took his seat gravely 
at his master's elbow, looking up wistfully into his eyes, 
while Finette, the pet spaniel, took her seat by Mrs. Scott. 
Besides the dogs : n attendance, a large gray cat also took 



172 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS DOGS. 

her seat near her master, and was presented from time to 
time with bits from the table. Puss, it appears, was a 
great favorite both with master and mistress, and slept in 
their room at night ; and Scott laughingly said that one 
of the least wise parts of the family arrangement was the 
leaving the window open at night for puss to go in and 
out. The cat assumed a sort of supremacy among the 
quadrupeds, sitting in state in Scott's arm-chair, and occa- 
sionally stationing himself on a chair beside the door, as 
if to review his subjects as they passed, giving each dog 
a cuff on the ears as he went by. This clapper-clawing 
was always amiably taken. It appeared to be in fact a 
mere act of sovereignty on the part of Grimalkin, to remind 
the others of their vassalage, to which they cheerfully sub- 
mitted. Perfect harmony prevailed between old puss and 
her subjects, and they would all sleep contentedly together 
in the sunshine. 

Scott once said, the only trouble about having a dog 
was that he must die ; but he said, it was better to have 
them die in eight or nine years, than to go on loving 
them for twenty or thirty, and then have them die. 

Scott lived to lose many of his favorites, that were 
buried with funeral honors, and had monuments erected 
over them, which form some of the prettiest ornaments of 
Abbotsford. When we visited the place, one of the first 
objects we saw in the front yard near the door was the 



SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS DOGS. 1 73 

tomb of old Maida, over which is sculptured the image of 
a beautiful hound, with this inscription, which you may 
translate if you like : — 

" Maidae marmorea dormis, sub imagine 
Maida, 
Ad januam domini ; sit tibi terra levis. 

Or, if you don't want the trouble of translating it, Mas- 
ter Freddy, I would do it thus : — 

"At thy lord's door, in slumbers light and blest, 
Maida, beneath this marble Maida rest. 
Light lie the turf upon thy gentle breast" 

Washington Irving says that in one of his morning 
rambles he came upon a curious old Gothic monument, 
on which was inscribed in Gothic characters, 

"Cy git le preux Percy," 
(Here lies the brave Percy,) 

and asking Scott what it was, he replied, "O, only one of 
my fooleries," — and afterwards Irving found it was the 
grave of a favorite greyhound. 

Now, certainly, Master Freddy, you must see in all this 
that you have one of the greatest geniuses of the world to 
bear you out in thinking a deal of dogs. 

But I have still another instance. The great rival poet 
to Scott was Lord Byron ; not so good or so wise a man 
oy many degrees, but very celebrated in his day. He also 



174 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS DOGS. 

had a four-footed friend, a Newfoundland, called Boatswain, 
which he loved tenderly, and whose elegant monument now 
forms one of the principal ornaments of the garden of 
Newstead Abbey, and upon it may be read this inscrip- 
tion : — 

"Near this spot 

Are deposited the remains of one 

Who possessed beauty without vanity, 

Strength without insolence, 

Courage without ferocity, 

And all the virtues of man without his vices. 

This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery 

If inscribed over human ashes, 

Is but a just tribute to the memory of 

Boatswain, a dog, 

Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803, 

And died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808." 

On the other side of the monument the poet inscribed 
these lines in praise of dogs in general, which I would 
recommend you to show to any of the despisers of dogs: — 

" When some proud son of man returns to earth 
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth, 
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe, 
And storied urns record who rests below. 
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend, 
The first to welcome, foremost to defend, 
Whose honest heart is still his master's own, 
Who labors, fights, lives, breathes, for him alone, 
Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth, 
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS DOGS. 1 75 

While man, vain insect ! hopes to be forgiver., 
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven ! 
Ye who perchance behold this simple urn. 
Pass on, it honors none you wish to mourn- 
To mark a friend 's remains these stones arise; 
I never knew but one, — and here he lies." 

If you want more evidence of the high esteem in which 
dogs are held, I might recommend to you a very pretty 
dog story called " Rab and his Friends," the reading of 
which will give you a pleasant hour. Also in a book 
called "Spare Hours," the author of" Rab and his Friends" 
gives amusing accounts of all his different dogs, which I 
am sure you would be pleased to read, even though you 
find many long words in it which you cannot understand. 

But enough has been given to show you that in the 
high esteem you have for your favorite, and in your deter- 
mination to treat him as a dog should be treated, you are 
sustained by the very best authority. 



"^,r4S" 



^^^jfili|f|W^t^ 



^ijsiLil 




DO my dear little friends want to hear a word more 
about our country neighbors ? Since we wrote about 
them, we have lived in the same place more than a year, 
and perhaps some of you may want to know whether old 
Unke or little Cri-cri have ever come up to sit under the 
lily-leaves by the fountain, or Master Furry-toes, the flying 
squirrel, has amused himself in pattering about the young 
lady's chamber o' nights? I am sorry to say that our 
country neighbors have entirely lost the neighborly, con- 
fiding spirit that they had when we first came and settled 
in the woods. 



COUNTRY NEIGHBORS AGAIN. 177 

Old Unke has distinguished himself on moonlight nights 
in performing bass solos in a very deep, heavy voice, down 
in the river, but he has never hopped his way back into 
that conservatory from which he was disgracefully turned 
out at the point of Mr. Fred's cane. He has contented 
himself with the heavy musical performances I spoke of, 
and I have fancied they sounded much like "Won't come 
any more, — won't come any more, — won't come any more ! " 

Sometimes, strolling down to the river, we have seen his 
solemn green spectacles emerging from the tall water-grasses, 
as he sat complacently looking about him. Near by him, 
spread out on the sunny bottom of the pool, was a large 
flat-headed water-snake, with a dull yellow-brown back and 
such a swelled stomach that it was quite evident he had 
been making his breakfast that morning by swallowing some 
unfortunate neighbor like poor little Cri-cri. This trick of 
swallowing one's lesser neighbors seems to prevail greatly 
*mong the people who live in our river. Mr. Water-snake 
makes his meal on little Mr. Frog, and Mr. Bullfrog fol- 
lows the same example. It seems a sad state of things ; 
but then I suppose all animals have to die in some way 
or other, and perhaps, if they are in the habit of seeing it 
done, it may appear no more to a frog to expect to be 
swallowed some day, than it may to some of us to die of 
a fever, or be shot in battle, as many a brave fellow ha? 
been of late. 



\yS COUNTRY NEIGHBORS AGAIN. 

We have heard not a word from the woodchucks. Eve> 
since we violated the laws of woodland hospitality by set 
ting a trap for their poor old patriarch, they have very 
justly considered us as bad neighbors, and their hole at 
the bottom of the garden has been "to let," and nobody 
as yet has ventured to take it. Our friends the muskrats 
have been flourishing, and on moonlight nights have been 
swimming about, popping up the tips of their little black 
noses to make observations. 

But latterly a great commotion has been made among 
the amphibious tribes, because of the letting down of the 
dam which kept up the water of the river, and made it a 
good, full, wide river. When the dam was torn down it 
became a little miserable stream, flowing through a wide 
field of muddy bottom, and all the secrets of the under- 
water were disclosed. The white and yellow water-lily roots 
were left high and dry up in the mud, and all the musk- 
rat holes could be seen plainer than ever before ; and the 
ot.ier day Master Charlie brought in a fish's nest which 
he had found in what used to be deep water. 

" A fish's nest ! " says little Tom ; " I did n't know fishes 
made nests." But they do, Tommy ; that is, one particular 
kind of fish makes a nest of sticks and straws and twigs, 
Mastered together with some kind of cement, the making 
of which is a family secret. It lies on the ground like i 
common bird's-nest turned bottom upward, and has a tin 



COUNTRY NEIGHBORS AGAIN. 





ittle hole in the side for a door, through which the little 
fishes swim in and out. 

The name of the kind of fish that builds this nest I do 
not know ; and if the water had not been drawn off, 1 
should not have known that we had any such fish in our 
river. Where we found ours the water had bean About 



ISO COUNTRY NEIGHBORS AGAIN. 

five feet above it. Now, Master Tom, if you want to 
know more about nest-building fishes, you must get your 
papa and mamma to inquire and see if they cannot get 
you some of the little books on fishes and aquariums that 
have been published lately. I remember to have read all 
about these nests in one of them, but I do not remember 
either the name of the book or the name of the fish, and 
so there is something still for you to inquire after. 

I am happy to say, for the interest of the water-lilies 
and the muskrats and the fishes, that the dam has only 
been torn down from our river for the purpose of making 
a new and stronger one, and that by and by the water 
will be again broad and deep as before, and all the water- 
people can then go on with their housekeeping just as 
they used to do, — only I am sorry to say that one fish 
family will miss their house, and have to build a new one ; 
but if they are enterprising fishes they will perhaps make 
some improvements that will make the new house better 
than the old. 

As to the birds, we have had a great many visits from 
them. Our house has so many great glass windows, and 
the conservatory windows in the centre of it being always 
wide open, the birds seem to have taken it for a piece of 
out-doors, and flown in. The difficulty has been, that; 
after they had got in, there appeared to be no way of 
nak* lg them understand the nature of glass, and wher 



COUNTRY NEIGHBORS AGAIN. l8l 

ever the)' saw a glass window they fancied they could fly 
through ; and so, taking aim hither and thither, they darted 
head first against the glass, beating and bruising their 
poor little heads without beating in any more knowledge 
than they had before. Many a poor little feather-head 
has thus fallen a victim to his want of natural philosophy, 
and tired himself out with beating against window-panes, 
till he has at last fallen dead. One day we picked up no 
less than three dead birds in different parts of the house. 
Now if it had only been possible to enlighten our feathered 
friends in regard to the fact that everything that is trans- 
parent is not air, we would have summoned a bird council 
in our conservatory, and explained matters to them at once 
and altogether. As it is, we could only say, " Oh ! " and 
''Ah!" and lament, as we have followed one poor victim 
after another from window to window, and seen him 
flutter and beat his pretty senseless head against the glass, 
frightened to death at all our attempts to help him. 

As to the humming-birds, their number has been infinite 
Just back of the conservatory stands an immense, high 
clump of scarlet sage, whose brilliant flowers have been 
like a light shining from afar, and drawn to it flocks ol 
these little creatures ; and we have often sat watching them 
as they put their long bills into one scarlet tube after 
another, lifting themselves lightly off the bush, poising a 
moment in mid-air, and then dropping out of sight. 



.'82 COUNTRY NEIGHBORS AGAIN. 

They have flown into the conservatory in such nnmbei'3 
that, had we wished to act over again the dear little his- 
tory of our lost pet, Hum, the son of Buz, we should have 
had plenty of opportunities to do it. Humming-birds have 
been for some reason supposed to be peculiarly wild and 
untamable. Our experience has proved that they are the 
most docile, confiding little creatures, and the most dis- 
posed to put trust in us human beings of all birds in the 
world. 

More than once this summer has some little captive ex- 
hausted his strength flying hither and thither against the 
great roof window of the conservatory, till the whole 
family was in alarm to help. The Professor himself has 
left his books, and anxiously flourished a long cobweb 
broom in hopes to bring the little wanderer down to the 
level of open windows, while every other member of the 
family ran, called, made suggestions, and gave advice, which 
all ended in the poor little fool's falling flat, in a state of 
utter exhaustion, and being picked up in some lady's 
pocket-handkerchief. 

Then has been running to mix sugar and water, while 
t t little crumb of a bird has lain in an apparent swoon 
m the small palm of some fair hand, but opening occasion- 
ally one eye, and then the other, dreamily, to see when 
-he sugar and water was coming, and gradually showing 
more and more signs of returning life as it appeared 



COUNTRY NEIGHBORS AGAIN. 1 83 

Even when he had taken his drink of sugar and water, 
and seemed able to sit up in his warm little hollow, he has 
seemed in no hurry to flee, but remained tranquilly look- 
ing about him for some moments, till all of a sudden, 
with one whirr, away he goes, like a flying morsel of green 
and gold, over our heads — into the air — ■- into the tree- 
tops. What a lovely time he must have of it ! 

One rainy, windy day, Miss Jenny, going into the con- 
servatory, heard a plaintive little squeak, and found a poor 
humming-bird, just as we found poor little Hum, all wet 
and chilled, and bemoaning himself, as he sat clinging 
tightly upon the slenderest twig of a grape-vine. She 
took him off, wrapped him in cotton, and put him in a 
box on a warm shelf over the kitchen range. After a 
while you may be sure there was a pretty fluttering in 
the box. Master Hum was awake and wanted to be at- 
tended to. She then mixed sugar and water, and, opening 
the box, offered him a drop on her finger, which he licked 
off with his long tongue as knowingly as did his name- 
sake at Rye Beach. After letting him satisfy his appetite 
for sugar and water, as the rain was over and the sun 
began to shine, Miss Jenny took him to the door, and 
way he flew. 

These little incidents show that it would not ever be a 
difficult matter to tame humming-birds, — only they cannot 
De kept in cages ; a sunny room with windows defended 



184 COUNTRY NEIGHBORS AGAIN. 

by mosquito-netting would be the only proper cage. Tha 
humming-bird, as we are told by naturalists, though very 
fond of the honey of flowers, does not live on it entirely 
or even principally. It is in fact a little fly-catcher, and lives 
on small insects ; and a humming-bird never can be kept 
healthy for any length of time in a room that does not 
admit insects enough to furnish him a living. So you see 
it is not merely toads, and water-snakes, and such homely 
creatures, that live by eating other living beings, — but 
even the fairy-like and brilliant humming-bird. 

The autumn months are now coming on (for it is Octo- 
ber while I write), — the flowers are dying night by night 
as the frosts grow heavier, — the squirrels are racing about, 
full of business, getting in their winter's supply of nuts ; 
everything now is active and busy among our country 
neighbors. In a cottage about a quarter of a mile from 
us, a whole family of squirrels have made the discovery 
that a house is warmer in winter than the best hollow 
tree, and so have gone in to a chink between the walls, 
where Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel can often be heard late at 
night chattering and making quite a family fuss about the 
arrangement of their household goods for the coming sea- 
son. This is all the news about the furry people that I 
have to give you. The flying squirrel I have not yet 
heard from, — perhaps he will appear yet as the weathe* 
gets colder. 



COUNTRY NEIGHBORS AGAIN. 1 85 

Old Master Boohoo, the owl, sometimes goes on at such 
a rate on moonlight nights in the great chestnut-trees that 
overhang the river, that, if you did not know better, you 
might think yourself miles deep in the heart of a sombre 
forest, instead of being within two squares' walk of the 
city lamps. We never yet have caught a fair sight of 
him. At the cottage we speak of, the chestnut-trees are 
very tall, and come close to the upper windows ; and one 
night a fair maiden, going up to bed, was startled by a 
pair of great round eyes looking into her window. It was 
one of the Boohoo family, who had been taken with a fit 
of grave curiosity about what went on inside the cottage, 
and so set himself to observe. We have never been able 
to return the compliment by looking into their housekeep- 
ing, as their nests are very high up in the hollows of old 
trees, where we should not be likely to get at them. 

If we hear anything more from any of these neighbors 
of ours, we will let you know. We have all the afternoon 
been hearing a great screaming among the jays in the 
woods hard by, and I think we must go out and see 
what is the matter. So good by. 



•visa 






'f'i f IJJ 

, / ilMni//J I 




^c- 




THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF LITTLE WHISKEY. 

A ND now, at the last, I am going to tell you something 
-*■*- of the ways and doings of one of the queer little people, 
whom I shall call Whiskey. 

On this page is his picture. But you cannot imagine from 
this how pretty he is. His back has the most beautiful 
smooth shining stripes of reddish brown and black, his eyes 
shine like bright glass beads, and he sits up jauntily on his 
hind quarters, with his little tail thrown over his back like a 
ruffle ! 

And where does he live? Well, " that is telling," as we 



HIE DIVERTING HISTORY OF LITTLE WHISKEY. 1 87 

children say. It was somewhere up in the mountains of 
Berkshire, in a queer, quaint, old-fashioned garden, that I 
made Mr. Whiskey's acquaintance. 

Here there lives a young parson, who preaches every Sun- 
day in a little brown church, and during week-days goes 
through all these hills and valleys, visiting the poor, and 
gathering children into Sunday schools. 

His wife is a very small-sized lady, — not much bigger than 
you, my little Mary, — but very fond of all sorts of dumb" 
animals ; and by constantly watching their actions and ways, 
she has come to have quite a strange power over them, as I 
shall relate. 

The little lady fixed her mind on Whiskey, and gave him 
his name without consulting him upon the subject. She 
admired his bright eyes, and resolved to cultivate his ac- 
quaintance. 

By constant watching, she discovered that he had a small 
hole of his own in the grass-plot a few paces from her back 
door. So she used to fill her pockets with hazelnuts, and go 
out and sit in the back porch, and make a little noise, such as 
squirrels make to each other, to attract his attention. 

In a minute or two up would pop the little head with the 
bright eyes, in the grass-plot, and Master Whiskey would sit 
on his haunches and listen, with one small ear cocked towards 
her. Then she would throw him a hazelnut, and he would 
slip instantly down into his hole again. In a minute or two, 



1 88 THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF LITTLE WHISKEY. 

however, his curiosity would get the better of his prudence ; 
and she, sitting quiet, would see the little brown-striped head 
slowly, slowly coming up again, over the tiny green spikes of 
the grass-plot. Quick as a flash he would dart at the nut, 
vhisk it into a little bag on one side of his jaws, which Ma 
i ime Nature has furnished him with for his provision-pouch, 
antf down into his hole again ! An ungrateful, suspicious 
littk M ite he was too ; for though in this way he bagged 
and cafi ed off nut after nut, until the patient little woman 
had used up a pound of hazelnuts, still he seemed to have 
the same wild fright at sight of her, and would whisk off and 
hide himself in his hole the moment she appeared. In vain 
she called, " Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey," in the most flatter- 
ing tones ; in vain she coaxed and cajoled. No, no ; he was 
not to be caught napping. He had no objection to accepting 
her nuts, as many as she chose to throw to him ; but as to 
her taking any personal liberty with him, you see, it was not 
to be thought of! 

But at last patience and perseverance began to have their 
reward. Little Master Whiskey said to himself, " Surely, this 
is a nice, kind lady, to take so much pains to give me nuts ; 
she is certainly very considerate ; " and with that he edged a 
little nearer and nearer every day, until, quite to the delight 
of the small lady, he would come and climb into her lap and 
seize the nuts, when she rattled them there, and after that he 
seemed to make exploring voyages all over her person. He 



THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF LITTLE WHISKEY. 1 89 

would climb up and sit on her shoulder; he would mount 
and perch himself on her head ; and, when she held a nut for 
him between her teeth, would take it out of her mouth. 

After a while he began to make tours of discovery in the 
house. He would suddenly appear on the minister's writing- 
table, when he was composing his Sunday sermon, and sit 
cocking his little pert head at him, seeming to wonder what 
he was about. But in all his explorations he proved himself 
a true Yankee squirrel, having always a shrewd eye on the 
main chance. If the parson dropped a nut on the floor, 
down went Whiskey after it, and into his provision-bag it 
went, and then he would look up as if he expected another ; 
for he had a wallet on each side of his jaws, and he always 
wanted both sides handsomely filled before he made for his 
hole. So busy and active, and always intent on this one 
object, was he, that before long the little lady found he had 
made way with six pounds of hazelnuts. His general rule 
was to carry off four nuts at a time, — three being stuffed 
into the side-pockets of his jaws, and the fourth held in his 
teeth. When he had furnished himself in this way, he would 
dart like lightning for his hole, and disappear in a moment; 
but in a short time up he would come, brisk and wide-awake, 
and ready for the next supply. 

Once a person who had the curiosity to dig open a chip- 
ping squirrel's hole found in it two quarts of buckwheat, a 
quantity of grass-seed, nearly a peck of acorns, some Indian 



190 THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF LITTLE WHISKEY. 

corn, and a quart of walnuts ; a pretty handsome supply for 
a squirrel's winter store-room, — don't you think so? 

Whiskey learned in time to work for his living in many 
artful ways that his young mistress devised. Sometimes she 
would tie his nuts up in a paper package, which he would 
attack with great energy, gnawing the strings, and rustling 
the nuts out of the paper in wonderfully quick time. Some- 
times she would tie a nut to the end of a bit of twine, and 
swing it backward and forward over his head; and, after a 
succession of spry jumps, he would pounce upon it, and hang 
swinging on the twine, till he had gnawed the nut away. 

Another squirrel — doubtless hearing of Whiskey's good 
luck — began to haunt the same yard; but Whiskey would 
by no means allow him to cultivate his young mistress's 
acquaintance. No indeed ! he evidently considered that the 
institution would not support two. Sometimes he would 
appear to be conversing with the stranger on the most 
familiar and amicable terms in the back yard : but if his 
mistress called his name, he would immediately start and 
chase his companion quite out of sight, before he came 
back to her. 

So you see that self-seeking is not confined to men alone, 
and that Whiskey's fine little fur coat covers a very selfish 
heart. 

As winter comes on, Whiskey will go down into his hole, 
which has many long galleries and winding passages, and a 



THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF LITTLE WHISKEY. 191 

snug little bedroom well lined with leaves. Here he will 
doze and dream away his long winter months, and nibble out 
the inside of his store of nuts. 

If I hear any more of his cunning tricks, I will tell you of 
them. 




